SpartanNash Company (NASDAQ:SPTN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tony Sarsam: That was a — central element of our merchandising transformation is to get the right price and the right kind of exciting price points for our customers and for our shoppers. And so, our supplier community stepped up big on that. So we are seeing a lot of enthusiasm, we’re getting those right price points out in the marketplace. I’d say they are — as I mentioned a moment ago, they are — they’ve been stronger this quarter than they were last quarter and stronger last quarter than we were the quarter before that. So, it’s been a natural movement, we believe. But, we’ve got great partnership with our suppliers on that. And I think we’ll continue to see that and see that as we try to get more and more energy into the grocery store.

Operator: We’ll now take a follow-up question from Charles Cerankosky with Northcoast Research.

Charles Cerankosky: My follow-up involves your independent retailers. How would you gauge their health as some of the bigger competitors have gained market shares, such as the club channel and Walmart? And how do you view them in terms of M&A opportunities to expand Spartan’s Retail segment?

Tony Sarsam: So, as far as their overall health, our 2,100 independent grocers are a very resilient group, and they’ve done tremendous work in these last few years. They continue to perform well. I was just with one of them yesterday. They — really is inspiring how they have really — they really understand their communities and they understand what matters to those communities, and they’re going to do fine. They continue to do fine. As far as — Chuck, what was the second part of your question? I’m trying to unpack that a little bit. You said something about how that impacts our retail. Can you go a little further on that?

Charles Cerankosky: As part of Spartan’s strategy still to be the acquirer in case they want to sell out? Are you still looking to grow Spartan’s Retail segment through M&A?

Tony Sarsam: Got it. Yes. So if you think about our overall growth, we are very focused on the growth of the business and are going to be much more aggressive in that pursuit. That includes growing more customers in terms of growing share of our Wholesale business. It includes growing more with our current business, meaning growing our current stores faster and taking share there, growing and providing great solutions for our current customer base that they can grow and we can grow together, and will include M&A. And so all those things have to work together for us to grow and grow the way we plan. So, you’ll see all those things working, including the M&A that you just mentioned.

Operator: And there are no other questions at this time. I’ll now turn the call back to Tony Sarsam for closing remarks.

Tony Sarsam: Great. So, that wraps up our call for today overall. So, thank you, everybody. Thank you all for your interest and your great questions. I want to thank everyone for the participation today. And from our family to yours, we like to offer you a very pleasant rest of your day.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for attending.

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