What the coronavirus pandemic has done to grocery sales at Boise’s Albertsons Cos.
The coronavirus pandemic has provided grocery stores a significant boost in business. An earnings report released Thursday morning by Albertsons Cos. offers a glimpse of how much people have increasingly relied on grocery stores to meet their food needs.
Same-store sales increased 34% during the first eight weeks of the Boise company’s 2020 fiscal year, ending April 25, compared with the same period a year ago. During the four weeks ending March 28, sales jumped 47% . In the subsequent four weeks, they were up 21%.
“We find ourselves in unprecedented times battling against the coronavirus and coping with the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic,” CEO Vivek Sankaran said in a quarterly earnings call with investors. “Our highest priority over the last two months has been ensuring the safety of our associates and customers while delivering the essential services we provide in the community.”
Sankaran did not provide sales figures for those eight weeks, which are outside the reporting period for the fourth quarter of 2019 and the end of the fiscal year. He said gas sales were down since motorists haven’t been driving as much, but he offered no details.
The pandemic has boosted the company’s e-commerce sales, Sankaran said, allowing customers to place orders online and pick up their groceries at a store or have them delivered.
“We’re getting new customers because of e-commerce, and we’re seeing our customers engage more in e-commerce, and I think that trend will continue,” he said.
Albertsons took a number of measures to increase store safety, Sankaran said, including Plexiglas sneeze screens at check stands, floor markings and signs to ensure customers remain 6 feet apart, and limits on the number of people inside a store at any one time. Surfaces get wiped down frequently, and hand sanitizer stations are set up throughout the stores.
Those measures have reassured customers and employees alike and have helped make people feel comfortable in stores, he said.
Employees, who are receiving temporary bonus pay of $2 an hour during the pandemic, have been told not to come to work if they feel sick.
“We have encouraged them to stay at home, and we pay them for the first two weeks and give them 14 days to either get over the illness or feel better and come back to work,” Sankaran said.
During the pandemic, Albertsons has donated more than 100 million pound of food to Feeding America, a network of more than 200 food banks across the nation. It has also donated 30 million breakfasts for children in need and set up a $50 million hunger relief fund to assist those impacted by COVID-19, he said.
During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, which ended Feb. 29, sales and other revenue were $15.4 billion, compared with $14 billion during the same period a year earlier. The increase in sales partly reflected an extra week during the quarter, which contributed $1.1 billion.
Sales for the fiscal year increased from $60.5 billion during 2019 to $62.5 billion in 2020. Same-store sales increased 2.1%.
This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 11:38 AM.
