Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Karen Howland - Lehman Brothers.
Karen Howland - Lehman Brothers
A question about the retail sales and that I mentioned this is for Bob. I just wanted to make sure I’m understanding this right. I noticed that the comp was down 3.9% but your total retail sales were down 2%; are the new stores that you have brought on this quarter just considerably higher volume than the ones that you’ve closed last year or what’s causing kind of that discrepancy there?
Robert Dimond
Yes, they are slightly higher volume than the ones that are coming in, so I think that would be a small piece of that there. As well as one of the things that you may have noticed is the adjustment between the years that we talked about in the first quarter versus the second quarter is the impact of the Easter week. Just two different sets of weeks compared together, maybe accounted for 20 or 30 basis points adjustment as well.
Karen Howland - Lehman Brothers
So, the comp is there on a like-to-like time period where as?
Robert Dimond
That’s correct. To get to the 2.2 we’ve essentially excluded the week that included Easter and then its comparable week in the associated every other year.
Karen Howland - Lehman Brothers
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about at your retail locations and your customers and what you’re seeing from the ultimate consumer. Obviously we’ve been hearing about people buying more on promotion, being more self conscious, looking for a value, I was wondering if you’re seeing any trends in that.
Alec Covington
I think we are seeing some of the same similar trends that we saw in the first quarter in that regard. I think that it’s very clear that the consumers are struggling with the amount of inflation that they are seeing, the shopping mix has changed a little bit, private label continuous to increase disproportionably to the rest of our business. You are seeing people in certain cases shop down, where they might have bought a steak, they are buying ground beef, you see some trends like that.
Produce and fresh vegetables continues to grow at a fairly accelerated rate. So that might a sign of maybe eating at home a little bit more, I don’t know, but we’re definitely seeing a change in mix, and we’re also seeing, changes that vendors are taking to deal with their own sets of problems and issues in escalating cost.
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