Moving on to the year-to-date results. Net sales for the first three quarters of the current year increased 4.1% to $797.2 million compared to the first three quarters of fiscal 2023, primarily due to the acquisition. Excluding the impact of the Lakeville acquisition, net sales decreased 5.7% to $721.6 million, primarily attributable to a 3.8% decline in sales volume and a 2% decrease in the weighted average selling price per pound. Sales volume increased 8.8%, primarily due to Lakeville acquisition. Excluding the impact of the Lakeville acquisition, sales volume [indiscernible], primarily due to sales volume decreases in the consumer and contract packaging channels. Gross profit margin increased slightly from 20.5% to 20.6% of net sales. Total operating expenses for the current year-to-date period increased $5.4 million to $93.6 million.
The increase in total operating expenses was mainly due to increases in incentive compensation, incremental operating expenses associated with the Lakeville acquisition, advertising expense, and charitable food donations. These increases were partially offset by the one-time bargain purchase gain from the Lakeville acquisition and a decrease in freight expense. Net income for the first three quarters of fiscal 2024 was $50.2 million or $4.30 per diluted share compared to net income of $48.2 million or $4.14 per diluted share for the first three quarters of fiscal 2023. Please refer to our 10-Q, which was filed yesterday for additional details regarding our financial performance for our third quarter of fiscal 2024. Now I’ll turn the call back over to Jeffrey to provide additional comments on our operating results for the third quarter of fiscal ’24 and discuss category trends.
Jeffrey Sanfilippo: Thanks, Frank, for the financial updates. Now let’s turn to retail consumption. I will share some category and brand results with you for the quarter. As always, market information I’ll be referring to is in Circana reported data, and for today, it is the period ending March 24, 2024. When I refer to Q3, I’m referring to 13 weeks of the quarter ending March 24, 2024. References to changes in volume or price are versus the corresponding period 1 year ago. We look at the category on Circana’s total U.S. definition, which includes food, drug, mass, Walmart, military, and other outlets, unless otherwise specified. And when we discuss pricing, we are referring to average price per pound. Breakouts of the recipe, snack, and produce nut segments are based on our custom definitions developed in conjunction with Circana.
The snack bar category is the syndicated view as defined by Circana, and the term velocity refers to the sales per point of distribution. In the last quarter, we continued to see shift in consumer behavior in the broader snack aisle as defined by Circana. We continue to see volume declines no longer offset by price across the entire snack aisle as consumers continue to tighten their budgets. The snack aisle declined 2.7% in volume and was down 1.1% in dollars in Q3. This is similar to the declines we experienced in Q2. The total nut and trail mix category was down 4.1% in dollars and down 3.4% in pound volume in Q3. This is actually slightly better performance than we saw last quarter as nut and trail mix prices have moderated with price per pound flat versus the prior year.
While prices have stabilized, the price per pound is still close to a 5-year high. Now I will cover each segment in more depth, starting with Recipe Nuts. Recipe Nut segment was down [technical difficulty] 1% in dollar sales and was flat in pound sales. This is an improvement in performance versus what we saw in Q2 as we continue to see pricing declines in this category across walnuts and pecans. Our Fisher recipe brand declined in Q3, driven mainly by lower distribution. Fisher declined 9% in dollars and 10% in pounds, a slight improvement versus the performance we saw in Q2. Fisher is still the branded Recipe Nut leader, and we are actively working on ways to engage consumers with the right price pack architecture and promotions as we planned for this year’s holiday season.
Now let me turn to the Snack Nut segment. In Q3, the Snack Nut segment was down 4.3% in dollars and down 4.1% in pound sales. This is consistent with the performance we saw in Q2. Some good news is that pricing continues to stabilize in the snack nut category with prices flat versus a year ago. Fisher Snack performed worse than the category, down 26% in dollars and 18% in pounds. This continues to be driven by significant distribution loss in the mass channel. We are continuing to find a balance between the right pricing and promotional strategy with margin in this competitive category. Private Label snack nuts are performing consistent with the category, down 5% in dollars and down 3.6% in pounds. The Trail & Snack Mix category was down 3% in dollars and down 3% in pounds in Q3, consistent with the performance we saw in Q2.
The prices of trail mix were flat versus a year ago. Our Southern Style Nuts brand declined 13% in dollars and 13% in pounds. The clients were almost entirely driven by the club channel distribution loss we’ve mentioned previously. Private Brands, the shared leader in trail mix performed slightly worse than the category, down 4% in dollars and 4% in pounds, driven by poor performance in the mass channel. Our last segment, Produce Nuts, declined 5% in dollars and 3% in pound volume in Q3, slightly better than the performance we saw in Q2. Our produce nut brand, Orchard Valley Harvest, declined 17% in dollar sales and 10% in pound sales, driven by distribution declines in the mass channel. The brand is continuing to see growth in the food channel, growing 4% in pounds in Q3.
And we continue to drive awareness and trial of our new products and packaging at retail. Now we will switch to the Snack category, which we will now start reporting in our earnings calls. In Q3, the Snack Bar category declined 6.5% in dollars and 10.8% in pounds. This is primarily driven by a total recall of a major branded snack bar player earlier this year. Snack bar pricing increased by 4.8% in Q3. Private label bars continue to grow 10.6% in dollars and 6.8% in pounds. Private label bars continue to expand in stores, picking up 3% more in TDP distribution, while prices rose 3.6%. We continue to see positive momentum in private label in the snack and energy bar category. In closing, we faced several challenges in the future, which include the impacts of ongoing inflation in food and other input prices, sustained higher interest rates and a potential for an economic downturn in the markets in which we operate.
