Remodels Driving 6% Comps at Supervalu, Noddle Says

ELLIOT ZWIEBACH

LAS VEGAS — Supervalu is achieving year-over-year sales increases of at least 6% at remodeled stores formerly operated under one of the Albertsons banners, Jeff Noddle, chairman and chief executive officer, said at the company's investor conference here last week.

The increase is 7% if the Minneapolis-based company compares results for the 12 weeks before remodeling starts with results 12 weeks after completion, he added.

Those returns are based on results from 61 former Albertsons-owned properties across the U.S. that have undergone major remodels in the last year or so, Noddle pointed out.

The increases stem from improving store service, merchandising and the quality of offerings, as well as from enhancing private-label lines and doing a better job of segmenting customer needs on a store-by-store basis, Noddle said.

It is those kinds of returns, he added — and the prospect that the company will complete between 300 and 400 similar remodels over the next 18 months — that enable him to predict that same-store sales increases could reach 3% or more by fiscal 2010, which for Supervalu begins in March 2009.