Sprouts Farmers Market - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Susannah Livingston, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Susannah Livingston (VP of Investor Relations and Treasurer)

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. We are pleased you are taking the time to join Sprouts on our first quarter 2023 earnings call. Jack Sinclair, Chief Executive Officer, and Chip Molloy, Chief Financial Officer, are with me today. The earnings release announcing our first quarter 2023 results, the webcast of this call, and quarterly slides can be accessed through the investor relations section of our website at investors.sprouts.com. During this call, management may make certain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our expectations for 2023 and beyond. These statements involve several risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in our SEC filings and the commentary on forward-looking statements at the end of our earnings release. Our remarks today include references to non-GAAP measures.

Please see the tables in our earnings release to reconcile our non-GAAP measures to the comparable GAAP figures. With that, let me hand it over to Jack.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks, Susanna, good afternoon, everyone. I want to begin our call by thanking our 31,000 team members for their continued dedication in creating a best-in-class experience for our customers seeking fresh, high quality, and healthy foods. We are pleased with our first quarter. We believe our long-term growth strategy is gaining traction and driving positive performance. Our results included comparable store sales growth of 3.1%, total sales growth of 6%, and adjusted diluted earnings per share growth of 24%. Our traffic trends are improving, and our newer stores on average are exceeding our internal expectations. During the first quarter, we opened eight new stores, grew our innovative and Sprouts brand offerings, improved our marketing spend, enhanced our supply chain, and developed positive programs for the environment. I'll follow up with more on our journey in just a bit.

For now, let me hand it over to Chip to review our financial performance in the first quarter and our 2023 outlook. Chip?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Thanks, Jack. Good afternoon, everyone. For the first quarter, total sales were $1.7 billion, up $92 million or 6% from the same period in 2022. New stores, combined with comparable store sales growth of 3.1%, drove this increase. Comp sales were supported by positive comp transactions or traffic and a net increase in basket due to retail inflation, partially offset by a slight decrease in items in the basket from a year-over-year perspective. We are especially pleased with our e-commerce sales, which grew double digits and represented 12.2% of our total sales for the quarter. We are also encouraged by the positive trends in our newer markets as we densify and create more brand awareness. As Jack already pointed out, we are pleased that our new stores on average are exceeding our expectations.

We continue to experience strong performances in categories with the most differentiation, such as grocery, bakery, dairy, and deli. Our Sprouts brand, now at 20% of total sales, performed well as customers continue to seek uniqueness and quality. Our first quarter gross margin was 37.5%, an increase of approximately 20 basis points compared to last year. Category mix shifts and continued promotional optimization contributed to the margin improvement. SG&A for the quarter totaled $486 million. Excluding the impact of special items, adjusted SG&A totaled $483 million, an increase of $23 million. This increase was primarily driven by the addition of new stores, higher wages, utility costs, and higher e-commerce fees, partially offset by approximately $4 million shifted to the back half of the year.

Store closure and other costs totaled approximately $28 million for the quarter and were primarily related to the charges associated with the decision to close 11 stores in 2023. Excluding the impact of special items, adjusted store closure and other costs were immaterial. Depreciation and amortization, exclusive of depreciation included in cost of sales, was $34 million for the quarter. Excluding special items associated with the store closing decision, the adjusted depreciation and amortization totaled $30 million. For the quarter, our earnings before interest and taxes were $102 million and interest expense was $2 million. Net income was $76 million. Diluted earnings per share were $0.73. Excluding the impact of special items, adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were $137 million.

Adjusted net income was $103 million, and adjusted diluted earnings per share were $0.98, an increase of 24% compared to the same period in the prior year. Now let's turn to the balance sheet and cash flow highlights. Sprouts has always had robust cash flow generation and a strong balance sheet. During the first quarter, our cash generation allowed us to invest in our business by opening eight new stores, purchasing the two previously licensed stores, spending $45 million in capital expenditures net of landlord reimbursements, paying down $25 million of our bank revolver and returning $98 million to our owners by repurchasing three million shares. We ended the first quarter with $295 million in cash and cash equivalents, $225 million outstanding on our $700 million revolver, and $22 million of outstanding letters of credit.

Turning to our current expectations for 2023. The consumer environment remains uncertain. However, we remain committed to our business strategy, which we believe can continue to deliver ongoing profitable growth. For the full year, we expect sales growth of 5%-6% and comp sales growth of 2%-3%. We expect gross margins to be flat to slightly up and slight deleverage in SG&A. The deleverage is due to the acceleration of new store growth, a new fee structure with our largest e-commerce partner and rising labor costs. We expect adjusted earnings before interest and taxes to be between $370 million and $385 million. Adjusted earnings per share should be between $2.58 and $2.68, which assumes no additional share repurchases.

That said, we do expect to continue to repurchase shares opportunistically. We are on track to open at least 30 new stores this year, all of which are in our current prototype, and we expect capital expenditures net of landlord reimbursements to be between $210 million and $230 million. For the second quarter of the year, we expect comp sales of approximately 3% and adjusted earnings per share between $0.61 and $0.65. With that, I'll turn it back to Jack.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks, Chip. We're encouraged by our most recent performance, a direct result of the strategic changes we've made over the past few years to differentiate ourselves as a specialty health and food retailer. We believe these changes are gaining traction now that we're on the other side of the pandemic. This year, we're focused on expanding category leadership, curating a unique assortment, focusing on product innovation, building a more efficient and effective supply chain, accelerating our store unit growth, and growing customer engagement. Let me touch on a few highlights from each of these initiatives. For the first quarter, our focus on curation and innovation is inspiring our customers. We stocked ourselves with innovative attribute friendly specialty products which appealed to our target customers. We are building a strong affinity for our Sprouts brands, including many products only available at key seasonal times.

Our customers recognize that the Sprouts brand provides quality offerings that taste great and are good for you. Amid the high inflationary environment, we brought in more value forward offerings like multi-pack grocery items and value size meat and dairy offerings, while continuing to offer great pricing in our produce department and on important items such as our Sprouts brand, cage-free eggs at $3.99 and our healthy sandwiches at $4.99. Moving on, we continue to improve the efficiency of our supply chain, touching both in-store and distribution centers. Categories with perpetual inventory computer-assisted ordering, PICAO, are already experiencing better on shelf in stocks. Most categories will be completed this second quarter, removing the guesswork from our inventory process. Our investment in the new Southern California DC is on target to open later this month.

Not only will the new DC support our growing capacity needs and be in a more robust labor market, but it will also be LEED Silver certified, contain solar on the roof, reduce miles on the road, and carry an electrified jockey truck to ensure our sustainability efforts reach the DCs. In the first half of this year, we will complete the additional ripening rooms in our Arizona, Texas and Southern California DCs, along with expanding our Texas DC later in the year. These initiatives will expand our capabilities, improve our quality and freshness, and leverage our supply chain to support our future unit growth. Speaking of unit growth, our smaller, more cost-effective format is rolling out quickly this year. We opened eight new stores in the first quarter.

All of this year's stores will be in the new prototype. At the same time, we're experiencing an improved performance with our more recent vintages, especially in newer markets where we're gaining density and growing brand awareness. Our pipeline is also growing with 90 approved new stores and 60 executed leases, helping us gain traction towards our goal of 10% unit growth per year. We believe we will be on track to achieve that goal by 2024. During the first quarter, we also purchased two previously licensed stores in Chula Vista, California. These two stores were part of a unique legacy licensing agreement. The purchase provides complete control of the Sprouts brand and expansion opportunities in portions of the San Diego market that were previously restricted by the agreement. Over 60% of our business is driven by our high-frequency customers.

Our goal is to drive our current core customers to shop more often and to encourage trials from new customers who are also within our target audience. We will drive this growth through customer engagement. First, we're driving customer engagement in our stores as a foundational focus. We're elevating the level of service in our stores to meet the needs of our customers and distinguish ourselves from the competition. The team is focused on ramping up our sampling program, particularly with our unique Sprouts brand offerings, increasing speed at checkout, and proactively helping our customers navigate the store while finding products that align with their dietary needs. Our customer survey scores, already strong, continue to rise. Our second area of customer engagement has been expanding and improving Sprouts' unique omnichannel experience.

The flexibility of ordering online and picking up or having their Sprouts favorites delivered provides a much-desired option for our core audience. Our e-commerce growth continues to outpace our overall growth, signaling that our differentiated products resonate with customers. We recently improved our site design and digital experience to improve conversion and sales. Our own site, shop.sprouts.com, and our Instacart and DoorDash partnerships continue to support our current customers' needs while also bringing in new customers. Our e-commerce sales represented 12.2% of our total sales for the first quarter. Our third area of customer engagement is targeting our core audience with data-driven media. We've improved the return on investment on our media spend with a more targeted, driven approach to our media mix, leveraging our first-party data and consumer insight to identify our customers better.

In many markets, we're still relatively new, so we're driving awareness with more storytelling about the brand, speaking to our local produce, and presenting offers for trial. In turn, our awareness numbers have improved in markets like Florida. We have seen higher returns in our established markets by driving consideration and reminders to visit our stores. Finally, we are deeply focused on our personalization strategy and are still in the early innings. Our customers are discerning in what they eat, and our ability to know them, share content with them, and provide offers for what they love is driving spend. In Q1, we improved our speed and capability and outperformed our expectations. As I've noted, this is a longer journey, but we are committed to building capability, and our customer is responding. Lastly, our ESG efforts continue to develop and grow.

Central to our identity is a genuine commitment to social and environmental responsibility. We work collaboratively with our supply chain partners, community organization, and industry experts to understand our material impacts and prioritize where we direct our environmental, social, and governance efforts. In 2022, some of our highlights included nearly 26% of total sales came from organic products. Approximately $200 million in sales of products produced by diverse-owned suppliers. We sold $145 million in local produce. Less carbon-intensive plant-based product sales increased 21%. We recovered 87% of food waste, and we donated the equivalent of 27 million meals. We also recycled more than 800,000 lbs of plastic from customer returned bags and product shipping wrap.

This year, we've already launched new programs to better serve our customers, our communities, and the environment, rescued organics in California, and the launch of our elimination of single-use bags at checkout. Based on our ESG accomplishments, Sprouts was named one of the 100 most sustainable companies in the world by Corporate Knights. Better eating and healthy eating is not a trend. It's a fast-growing movement of customers seeking a healthier lifestyle, even during challenging economic conditions. Given our leadership in being a destination for health, wellness, and innovation, Sprouts is well-positioned to grow. Our commitment to our strategic changes is beginning to show results, attracting more customers and visits, and doing so profitably. I look forward to speaking with many of you in the coming months. With that, I'd like to turn it over to the operator for questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. The first question comes from Mark Carden with UBS. Your line is now open.

Mark Carden (Equity Research Analyst)

Good afternoon. Thanks so much for taking the questions. To start, your 3.1% comp came in meaningfully above your guidance, the highest level you've seen since 2020. Within that, where were the biggest differences relative to your initial expectations? Did traffic accelerate more than expected? You called out the slight decrease in units per basket, is that starting to stabilize a bit faster than you expected, or is it really something else driving it in the back half of the period?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Hey, Mark, this is Chip. It's generally it's traffic. The AUR and the units are in line with what we thought. We had slightly better traffic in Q1 than we thought we were gonna have at the beginning of the year.

Mark Carden (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Then just in terms of, you talked about your new stores exceeding expectations. Now that you guys have had a few quarters where you've been building the new prototype, are you noticing any consistent differences in how customers are shopping in these stores from a mix perspective relative to your legacy boxes?

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

We've been encouraged by the new, first of all, we're encouraged by the benefits that we're getting by having smaller stores in terms of the cost of the stores and the returns that they come. In terms of how customers are shopping them, I think post-pandemic, we've seen an encouraging number in our vitamins and supplements department, where people, you know, the idea of immunity, people getting more kind of focused on immunity post the pandemic. I think our stores have done a nice job at kinda capturing that. We've been encouraged by the bounce back in our bulk business, which took a bit of a hit through the pandemic, through lots of operational challenges within different jurisdictions, even not being allowed to sell it. That's worked quite well for us.

The work that we've put in on two significant things in the store. One is the meals case. We've been adding a lot of ready meals cases with meals that are targeted towards health and plant-based and a little bit differentiated, so we're encouraged by that investment. We've also invested a lot of time and energy putting an innovation center into most of our stores, where you'll find a range of products that rotates every month, but every single product, well, you won't be able to find anywhere else, so the differentiation that comes from that innovation. We've seen those kind of spaces, so meals, innovation, vitamins, bulk, we've been encouraged by that. Underpinning it all, our grocery and dairy businesses and our frozen business have been bouncing pretty well, but have been doing well.

We invested quite a lot of space in frozen in our newer stores. We're encouraged by that, those returns as well.

Mark Carden (Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Thanks so much, guys, and good luck.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks, Mark.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Thanks, Mark.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Ken Goldman with JPMorgan. Your line is now open.

Ken Goldman (Managing Director)

Hey, good afternoon. Thank you. I just wanted to get a quick sense of what you're seeing from the competitive environment. Doesn't seem like there's a significant amount of pricing pressure or intensification of promotions out there. We're certainly heading in that direction, but doesn't feel like there's anything dramatic yet. I'm just curious what you're seeing and what you're hearing out there, and if there's anything that you're more or less concerned by than what you might have expected a few months ago.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Yes, Ken, we kinda haven't as you say, we're not seeing a lot of dynamic changes in terms of how people are positioning their pricing. We're certainly not seeing anything from any of the major players in this going forward. As I've kind of always said on these calls, we kinda watch produce a lot in a lot of detail, and we haven't seen much in that. The other assortment, the range of assortment that we have is pretty differentiated from the others. Yeah, we watch what other people are doing. The piece that we watch most is produce.

The other side of the equation, I haven't seen much, but even if we did, we feel as if we've got a pretty we've got a strong moat in the assortment that we have and the differentiate that we have, that almost whatever happens going forward, we feel confident that the way we're building our assortment and curating differentiation, that we can withstand what might happen or what might not happen in the pricing environment going forward.

Ken Goldman (Managing Director)

Thanks. Quick follow-up. Speaking of produce, obviously, there's been a lot of rain in California, in some locations, too much. I'm just curious what your forecast is for supply as a general rule in summer, or whether you expect it to maybe be a net tailwind or a headwind to your top and bottom lines. I might be too early, but I'm just trying to get a sense of how you view that.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

As you know, there's a lot of volatility in this going forward, and it has been quite tight over the last few months. There's been some challenges, both in terms of weather and some of the challenges of getting the crops out of the ground. There has been some issues in terms of making that work. I think we're feeling more confident than less confident going forward on produce sourcing. We think there'll be some ups and downs depending on how it all plays out. I think if anything, we're feeling more confident rather than less confident about being able to access the products that we want to get.

We're working quite hard on trying to source more and more organic product, and I think that's something that will play well to our customers, and we think we'll probably be in a good shape through the summer to work that one through. We're also working pretty hard, more than ever on local sourcing. As we've opened our Orlando distribution center, Florida, when it hits the season later in the year, will be in good shape for us. I think we're probably more positive than less positive about the supply challenges going forward.

Ken Goldman (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks so much.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Edward Kelly with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open.

Edward Kelly (Managing Director)

Hi, good afternoon, guys.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Good afternoon.

Edward Kelly (Managing Director)

I wanted to ask about your expectation for inflation as the year progresses. I mean, it does certainly look like, you know, the pricing aspect is easing quite a bit. Kinda curious as to what's in your guidance for that and then how do you think, you know, consumer behavior, your own traffic items in the basket, things like that change as the year progresses. I think there's, you know, concern that as it slows, right, that hurts the comp. I don't think that that's how you necessarily see it in the guidance. Just curious as to what, you know, the rest of us are missing for those that are worried about that?

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, let me do some macro comments, and I'll pass on to Chip to do some of the specifics in the middle of this. I think the context of food inflation has been quite unusual in the last year, and there's a lot of macro factors, particularly the kind of availability of fertilizer and grain and some of the pressures that have come from the Ukraine-Russia situation. I'm not sure that's gonna go away. The volatility that's come from that is certainly flowing through in terms of different commodities across the marketplace. Our forecast going forward is that it'll. Clearly, we're not gonna double down. It's not gonna carry on at the rate that's gonna carry on at. We're certainly not expecting any deflation going forward as the year goes on within the forecast that we've put in place.

With regarding to the basket, I'll pass you on to Chip.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Yeah, Ed. We've kinda always thought from the beginning of the year that our traffic would be relatively flat for the year. We assume that we would continue to get AUR benefits from inflation. All those changes that happened last year, all the way up through the end of last year, and in some cases continuing, that would flow through, but start to dissipate from a year-over-year perspective and more stabilization sequentially. As it relates to units in the basket, similarly, but just the opposite, you know, units have been down year-over-year. As you start to get through the year, you start to see the sequential decline stabilize, and therefore your comp net-net comes out about where we guided.

It's a mix of flat-ish traffic with less benefit from AUR and a little less worse hit from units.

Edward Kelly (Managing Director)

Great. Thank you. Just to follow up on, you know, on SG&A, you talked about slight deleverage. You did leverage, you know, a bit this quarter. It seems like, you know, maybe that deleverage is more, you know, back-half weighted. Maybe could you talk about that? I know there's a new e-com fee structure. I'm not sure, you know, the magnitude of that either. Just the last part of all this is that, you know, you haven't had any EPS adjustments for the last couple of years. I'm curious as to what, you know, we're seeing this quarter. Do you expect more adjustments going forward, or is this kinda like one and done around the store closures?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

As it relates to SG&A, SG&A is, as we migrate through the year, there will be some deleverage in the back half as you've sorted through. It's driven by three things. One is the acceleration of the store growth. The second is the e-commerce fees, as you mentioned, because as we got out of our exclusive contract, that structure changed, which was a decision that we made. Thirdly, is labor costs on the stores specifically. Last year, we fought the cost per labor hour increases in the beginning of the year, not really what we wanted to do, but it was hard to staff the stores.

Beginning in the second half of last year, we were able to find some efficiencies via a lot of the systems we've been implementing over the years, and we were able to take some hours out of the stores. That's running through to the first half this year. You start to get in the back half, and those efficiencies will now have been anniversaried, so we'll get some slight deleverage in the back half of the year. Net-net will be slightly negative for the year.

Edward Kelly (Managing Director)

just on the one-timers, just curious, you know, like last year?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Oh, on the one-timers?

Edward Kelly (Managing Director)

Yeah. Thank you.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

The one-timers are. We'll still have a little bit going forward. Most of it's behind us as it relates to the store closings. Net-net, we approximated around $45 million for the full-year all in. We just did $35 million. We got about $10 million to go. Some of that'll be in supply chain costs, as it relates to the San Diego or the Southern California DC, some transition costs there, and there's a little bit more on the store closings, really around severance.

Edward Kelly (Managing Director)

Got it. Thank you.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Mm-hmm.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Michael Montani with Evercore. Your line is now open.

Michael Montani (Managing Director)

Hey, thanks for taking the question. I just wanted to ask to start off if you could discuss a little bit more, you know, the health of the consumer, and particularly what you found in terms of the mix impact, as well as, any kinda geographic color that you can share of how comps were in the quarter by region.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Michael, we've seen a pretty consistent pattern across the country on this. There's some difference in terms of the speed at which some of our stores in the less developed market. Overall, the consumer behavior has probably been pretty consistent across the country. Certainly, there's pressure on the consumer. The one thing we've always said about our business is that when you have a differentiated food assortment, the people that are interested in vegetarians or ketos or paleo, specific diets tend to be kind of resilient to that irrespective of the economic circumstances are based. We've seen a bit of a consistency in how consumers have reacted to the categories where we've got very significant differentiation. That's been part of the strategy all along, which how do we curate differently?

The behavior we've seen has been consistent across the country, and we've seen strength in those areas where we're differentiated. That's given us some encouragement that the strategy we've put in place is strong.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

I would add, Michael. Michael, I would add, we saw some, you know, California, which is a big market, huge market for us. California's really strong. Florida's really strong. We've put a lot of new stores in, so that area as the stores are starting to comp, that's been really good for us holistically. Arizona, which is our home market, has been solid. Net-net, you know, we've had a couple strong, but I think some of that is not really consumer driven, as Jack mentioned, where it's not really a one consumer's different than the other. I think some of it is just where we have strength and we're starting to monetize it.

Michael Montani (Managing Director)

Got it. Thank you. Just to follow up on the cost side, I think you may have mentioned a $4 million shift in SG&A into year-end. Just wanted to understand that as well as the impairment cost of around $30 million. Was there any store operating expense in that, or was that strictly, you know, closure related?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

That was closure related. There's some depreciation in that total number, so it's, it should be totally outlined for you in our, in our release. We have that. I apologize, Michael, what was the first part?

Michael Montani (Managing Director)

Just I think you may have mentioned a $4 million shift in SG&A.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

The $4 million shift. Yeah. We have some initiatives that, internal initiatives that really are kind of shifting to the third quarter that we thought we would get done in the first quarter. Those are just a shift in some costs.

Michael Montani (Managing Director)

Got it. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer. Your line is now open.

Rupesh Parikh (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my question. Just going back to your commentary on e-commerce growth, you guys called out strong double-digit growth, and I know you are also lapping omnichannel comparisons to a very strong growth number. Just curious on the sustainability of the momentum there. You know, I know you added DoorDash. Just curious how incrementality has played out as you've added another provider there.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, we've been pleased, Rupesh, with the DoorDash, the launch of the DoorDash. Customers seem to have reacted well to, and it seems to have brought some new customers to our platform. The way we're thinking about e-com is very much on an omni-channel basis, that the customer will choose how they want to transact with Sprouts. The thing that's encouraged us about the e-commerce growth is that in a grocery environment, it's relatively easy for people to buy from whomever they feel like. The fact that they can only get the assortment from Sprouts that we sell gives me some confidence that customers are navigating their way to our curated assortment in a very positive way.

The context of we're very pleased with the work we do with both Instacart and DoorDash, customers can choose how best to access e-com. At the same time, our pick-up business is going as well over the period of time, in-store traffic's going up a little bit. We're getting a nice balance across the three. Our e-commerce business has been very strong over the course of the last year, and we're encouraged by it.

Rupesh Parikh (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. One question just on traffic. As you look at your initiatives, is there anything you can point to in terms of what's driving that positive traffic? You know, I've been in stores and, you know, I've seen some sampling and, you know, store experience has clearly improved. Just curious if there's anything you'd point to in getting to-

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, I mean, there's four... I mean, there's big, the big bucket, I think the media work's been more effective than it had been. I think we're communicating a little bit more effectively with our target customers than we were. I'm encouraged by that. I'm encouraged by the in-store work that you referenced, the fact that we're getting post- The pandemic kind of took the window out the sales of creating this sampling environment for innovative products in the stores, and we're having to reinvent that a little bit. The teams are doing a lot of work on that and making a lot of progress at trying to make that come alive. The combination of media and in-store execution, I think is contributing to that.

Increasingly, tactically, we're testing a lot of different things to be more personalized in how we communicate with our customers, and we think we're getting some benefits out of that. We're really on the early innings of that one, and I'm quite excited about the future on that and what we can do as we get better and better identifying the target customers. We're up to 18% of our customers giving us their information now, which we didn't have before, and that's something that will. There's such an upside as we grow that going forward. It gives us a lot of runway going forward in these initiatives.

Rupesh Parikh (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Krisztina Katai with Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open.

Krisztina Katai (Director of Equity Research)

Hi, good afternoon, and congratulations on a great quarter. I wanted to follow up.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks, Krisztina.

Krisztina Katai (Director of Equity Research)

Hey, Jack. Just wanted to follow up on the personalization, especially because it sounds very exciting. As we think about the effect of inflation on Sprouts with the items per basket decreasing by those one or two units, do you see the moderation in inflation, especially in fresh foods, as an opportunity to really start to add those items back? This is where I think personalization comes in. I know it's early days, but are you finding success to drive those more frequent trips and those more items per basket with your targeted consumer?

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

We're making some progress on trying to figure out exactly how to do that more effectively. Inflation has clearly led to volume drops across the industry, and we're seeing that across our basket as we've talked about over the last few calls. What tends to happen, and we've seen it in category by category, when the inflation comes down a little bit, the level of unit production changes a little bit. The level of reduction changes a bit, and that balances itself out. We've seen that in a couple of categories over the course of the last little while.

The key to the personalization question that you're asking, Krisztina, is how do we target more specifically and very specifically to that, the sampling program in stores, we're seeing very good results on a category by, product by product basis when we get those products in front of people. We've been very encouraged by that, and we'll see that we're doubling down on that over the next little while will be important in trying to increase the number of units per basket. We do think the mitigation inflation and the execution inside the stores will help us drive that. On top of that, the personalization communication with these additional customers that we've got giving us information will allow us to promote more directly, and that will be a key factor. The business is focusing in on two things.

One, how do we get more transactions into the stores? Secondly, how do we drive the basket in terms of when we get people into the stores or onto the e-com system? Chip, do you wanna add something?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

I just would add that our expectations, Krisztina, as inflation dissipates, we're not assuming for now that you'll see a massive reversal in units in the basket. We'll just see a similar stabilization. All the things that Jack's talking about are opportunities to drive better results than what we're assuming today.

Krisztina Katai (Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thank you for that, both of you. Then just a follow-up, I mean, it does sound like industry promotions remain very rational, but, you know, now that the supply chain is in a much better place, large peers seem to be back to their historical in-stock and service levels, and trade spend is starting to return, especially in center of store. I know that your overlap is relatively limited, but does that change at all the way that you view your price gap currently?

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, I think we constantly, as I said earlier, we constantly look at what other people are doing. We feel as if a lot of categories we've got real differentiation. Other people don't sell a lot of vitamins and supplements. We're not seeing that category under pressure. Bulk gives us a huge opportunity in a tough environment that not a lot of people get involved in. Our proportion of sales in plant-based and keto and paleo is just very different to what other people have. We don't look at that, and we don't see the context of a big grocery price war really directly if that ever I don't think it will happen, but if it did happen, we don't see that significantly affecting our major categories that we have.

I said earlier, we constantly look at produce pricing, and that's something we'll pay a lot of attention to going forward. We're certainly feeling that, the margin growth that we've had will we will be able to maintain that going forward in the context of what might happen or what might not happen in a grocery environment, a competitive grocery environment.

Krisztina Katai (Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thank you so much. Best of luck.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Leah Jordan with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open.

Leah Jordan (Research Analyst)

Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. First, I wanted to ask about produce. You know, how are you thinking about your price gaps in that category specifically? Has there been any change to kind of the strategy around 10%-15% below traditional?

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

You've got a lot of context to that question, Leah. It's a good question. It's something we think a lot about it. Different competitors have always approached produce in a different way, and we've got even bigger gaps than that against some people in the marketplace, and we've got smaller gaps against other people in the marketplace. We tend to find the Texas market is more competitive than some other markets, the Florida market less competitive, the California market less competitive. Our focus, again, we're trying to be very aggressive on organic pricing. You would find that organic produce, which is a much bigger proportion of our sales than anyone else's sales in the produce space. We've got bigger and wider gaps than what you just alluded to in your question, Leah.

I'm a bit narrower on more commoditized products, and we think that's the space that we can win. As other people margin up on organic, we're trying to more be flatter on those margins. We've got opportunity to be really differentiated on price and organic. We've got opportunities across the marketplace where we're less competitive, some places more competitive, but everywhere we would aspire to be on average, given all the volatility at the best point in the marketplace, some places we're much better than just being the best.

Leah Jordan (Research Analyst)

Okay, great. That's very helpful. Thank you.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Karen Short with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

Hey, thanks very much. Just a couple questions. When you look at the charges that you took this quarter for the closed stores, can you maybe

Kind of try to give us some color because the dollar amount per store seems very high. That's my first question. My second question is just looking forward on actual, you know, new store productivity, how we should think about that going forward as a percent. The dollar amount on the closures is kind of more... It's just a very-

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Well, it's in line, Karen Short, with what we guided to at the beginning of the year. We took $20 million in store closure and other costs this quarter. We also had $4 million in depreciation. We had some SG&A costs, it's couple million dollars. That we have $35 million. When you're closing the stores, you're having to take the entire asset costs and write the asset down net of any sort of landlord, any sort of subleasing. If you have, you know, a store that's got years left on its lease, it's not just... You know, we closed some stores. They weren't all old stores that we closed.

They still had years left on their leases. That asset is gonna get written down quite a bit when you think about a store that maybe still has seven, eight years left on its lease.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

Okay. But to be clear, going forward, there should be no more store closures. These were, like-

Chip Molloy (CFO)

The only expense. There shouldn't be going forward. In the second quarter, you're gonna see a little bit of one-offs in supply chain, which is up in cost of goods, a couple of million dollars in the second quarter. You'll see a little bit of SG&A. You won't see anything on the store closure line going forward.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

Okay. Going forward, as you open stores, what would be the right way to think about you know, new store productivity in general?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

It's creeping up, but we don't have a... I mean, we have a target that we, you know, gave you an algorithm as it relates to a new store from year zero to year five. As you can see in the math, even though differently, our math is increased. It's getting better, around 75% or better.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

As we model it, and again, I get it, like, it's timing and it depends on when in the quarter, but if I'm modeling it, I should look at new store productivity at, like, 75%. Is that fair?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Yeah. If your model, if you're going back, if you're trying to get at the algorithm, the algorithm really hasn't changed the way we assumed it. You're gonna come out at $13 million on average. It's gonna cost you $3.8 million to get in. That's at 75% of maturity. You're gonna see it's gonna take about. It's break even in year one, and it's gonna be by year four, will be 30%-35% year-over-year cash returns.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

Okay. nothing changed on the algo, generally?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Nothing's really changed. I mean, it's really early. We just opened stores that we opened later last year or were opened this year. We're encouraged because they're coming out of the gates better than on average than we thought they were gonna come out of the gates and perform. We're, you know, talking about stores that are anywhere from... They're not even a year old yet. We're encouraged that we are doing better than what we thought when we modeled them. Their time will tell.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Karen, we're kind of encouraged that new stores are opening a little bit. I think it's hard during the pandemic to open stores and get huge numbers straight away as customers were less reluctant to try new things. We're definitely seeing a strength in the latest stores that we've opened, the last dozen or so stores that we've opened as the pandemic starts to kind of unwind. We're encouraged by that against the numbers that Chip's talking about.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

Okay, Jack, if you don't mind me asking just a quick question. Obviously the new format is very different, right? You only have one entrance, like, you're focused on ROIC on the stores. Is there any inclination to change what the new format looks like as it relates to, you know, balancing ROIC relative to sales?

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, the key ask.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

I totally understand what you're doing in terms of ROIC, but...

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, the principle behind what we did well, those few years ago was that we would hold the same absolute level of sales on much smaller stores, which gives you a much better return. The intent wasn't to just to get ROIC up. The intent was, can we give the proposition to the customer that's as effective in a 23,000 sq ft store as it is in a 30,000 sq ft? During my observations, and I think we talked about this, my observations were there's a lot of empty space, and there's a lot of space in the non-customer facing part of the store that we can squeeze that allow us to get the same assortment in place at the same time as at the same assortment and get the same kind of sales on a much smaller cost base.

By and large, that's the kind of path that we're on around the numbers going forward. We are certainly tweaking things. I'm really pleased we did one door, to be honest with you, 'cause vitamins and supplements on one side, getting control of that, and, you know, everyone knows about what's happening and the challenges of selling things in from a crime point of view. We're very pleased by that in terms of how that's working for us. We are tweaking a few things. We're looking at where we've got our wines. We're looking at how we're handling our bakery. We're looking at where we should have our meals featured. We're tweaking things, but the basic principle of what we're operating to, we're very encouraged by.

Karen Short (Managing Director)

Okay. Thank you.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks, Karen.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Chuck Cerankosky with Northcoast Research. Your line is now open.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Good evening, everyone. Great quarter.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Thanks.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Jack and Chip, could you give us an idea of what inflation was through the first quarter and where you think it'll be at year-end, and then how that might be reflected in volume?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Well, the first quarter is still teetering on double digits. We expect by the end of the year, that'll be from a year-over-year perspective, will be significantly lower than that. At the same time, the units per basket, as I said earlier, we're not expecting reverse in units per basket. We're expecting sequentially that they will stabilize. As they do, then you have, instead of having a, you know, call it high singles loss on units, you're down in the low singles year over year, while sequentially you're flat.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

When you say single, you're talking about percentage changes?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Digits. Yes, sir.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Yeah.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Yes, sir.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Digits of percentage change. Apart from inflation, are you able to discern from your customers whether they have, whether it's economic anxiety that's affecting the basket size, number of units in the basket? It sounds like you're making great progress in delivering value with bulk and the private label items and the value packs and things like the meat department.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

We've talked about this a little bit, Chuck. Our produce business is seeing a little bit of a reduction. We think it's Part of this is we think people managing shrink at home, rather than buying two packets of salad, you'll buy one packet of salad, so you don't run out of it at home. That's one of the things that I think people are paying a lot more attention to. That's a trend that we've certainly seen in our business, where the units are coming down a little bit in our produce space. You only need to buy one strawberry rather than two punnets of strawberries. That would be the, one of the biggest drivers to the numbers in terms of how customers are reacting to it. Across the other part of the store, we're seeing some...

as you said, we're encouraged by some of the numbers that we're seeing there, which again ties up with this kind of, if you've got specifically specific dietary needs or specific interests in certain attributes, you tend to not compromise yourself on that one. Where you can compromise yourself a little bit is in not buying quite so much produce. That's what we see in our customers at the moment.

Chuck Cerankosky (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

All right. Thank you. Good luck for the rest of the year.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Thanks, Chuck.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Robbie Ohmes with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Hey, thanks for taking my question. I actually have a few modeling follow-up questions. I think these are probably mostly for you, Chip. First, the adjusted D&A was about $30 million in the first quarter. Is that the type of number we should use for D&A roughly for the next, three quarters?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Yeah. Yes. It'll be slightly higher between $30 million and $35 million for the next three quarters.

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Gotcha. I might have missed it. The store closings, did you close all 11 in the first quarter or are they closing in the second quarter, some of them, or?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

No. We closed one in the first quarter. The other 10 are in the second quarter. When you make the decision to close the stores is when you have to book the charge. Since we made the decision in Q1, we had to take the charge in Q1, the bulk of it.

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Got it. Can you give us the rough new store openings by quarter?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Hold on a second. We had a Q1 at $395. We're in Q2, call it $392, in Q3 at $401, Q4 at $407±.

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Gotcha.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

That's not the stores we're opening. That's our total stores.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Yeah. He knows. He knows that.

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

I think we can back into it with those.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

You can back into that. Right.

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

That's helpful. The last one, you know, maybe for both of you is just the, you know, the adjusted EBIT margin was super high or very nice this quarter. How are you thinking about the sustainable EBIT margin annually for Sprouts?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

You're talking longer term?

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

this year and longer term. Should we be thinking like a 6+?

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Yeah. I think the adjusted EBIT margin 6+ is. You know, we're looking at based on our guidance for the full year, I mean, this was a big quarter. Of course, first quarters are always gonna be our highest quarter because that's our biggest year, biggest quarter of the year from a sales perspective as people get onto their sort of New Year's diets. We're in the mid fives. I suspect as we go out into the out years, as we think about our algorithm, we're probably looking at flat gross, and then we're probably gonna work hard to be flat on G&A. Our operating margin will be, call it a push while we're still growing 10% square footage.

Robbie Ohmes (Managing Director and Senior Retail Analyst)

Got it. That's tremendously helpful. Thanks so much, guys.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Please stand by for our next question. The next question comes from Kelly Bania with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. Good evening. Thanks for taking our questions. Was curious if you could talk a little bit about the magnitude of traffic. I think I heard in the earlier question about maybe double-digit inflation and a high single-digit decline in units per basket. Just curious if you could talk about the magnitude of traffic and how that trended.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

The traffic in the first part of the quarter was down. We were cycling Omicron and the King Soopers strike from last year, and then it rebounded. Net-net we had, you know, we don't give the number, but it was, you know, it wasn't tiny, but it wasn't huge. If we could do it every quarter at that number, that's where we'd be.

Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay. You kind of touched on a little bit, the Q1 maybe is seasonally strong, but, as we look at this gross margin this quarter and even for the past really two years, that your Q1 gross margin is typically your highest. Then it kind of moderates from there maybe by 80 to 100 basis points. Is that a similar kind of, pattern that we should expect this year? Maybe just any color you could share.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

That is very similar. That's driven by two things in Q1. One is just because of your clear volumes, we get a little bit more leverage on your distribution transportation, so your fixed costs associated with D&T. The second is it's just the mix of the product, the fact that it's just our biggest quarter of the year. It's just a slightly different mix, and then you get the other three quarters.

Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)

That's very helpful. Maybe I'll just add one more, since those were quick, but I think I heard you say 60% of your business was from high-frequency customers, and that sounded like a new insight to me and was curious if you could maybe talk about how you're getting that, what you're doing with that, what you're seeing in terms of traffic from those high-frequency customers versus maybe those, the other 40%. Maybe just expand on that data point a little bit for us.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, those are our most important customers, and we're trying to get more of them, and it's about getting them to spend more in the basket. As you we're getting better and better at identifying in the basket exactly who those people are as part of this exercise. 18% of our customers, we're now sharing. We're getting much closer to the information on them. Our high-frequency customers are the people that really are resonating with the assortment that we have and have got specific needs around it. Those are a group of people that we are going to invest a lot more time. Clearly, if you can get lifetime value of those kind of customers, that's gonna be a big part of our personalization efforts going forward.

This part of links to being a very tight specialist retailer as opposed to a broad mass market retailer. I think that's kind of encouraging that those people are beginning to spend a little bit more with us. We think they're operating in a very omnichannel way with us as well, which we're able to understand a little bit better than we have in the past, and we'll get better at that going forward. You're certainly identifying an important group of people that we're spending a lot of time thinking about.

Kelly Bania (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Chip Molloy (CFO)

Thank you.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Thanks, Kelly.

Operator (participant)

I show no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Jack Sinclair for closing remarks.

Jack Sinclair (CEO)

Well, thank you, everybody, for taking the time to listen to our story, and I appreciate your commitment to us. Thanks ever so much. Take care.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.