Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) It looks like first we will go to the side of Ed Aaron from RBC Capital Markets, please go ahead.
Ed Aaron – RBC Capital Markets
Thanks good afternoon. Just hoping you guys could talk a little bit more about the trends that you are seeing in your stores and maybe covering three different areas. First where category wise sales might be trending relatively better or worse? Secondly how you are feeling about the overall service levels in light of the cost cutting that you have done at the store level? And then third maybe about your level of satisfaction with the pricing actions that you have taken to date, are there other areas where maybe you haven’t invested nothing on (inaudible) also maybe areas where you have perhaps over invested? Thanks.
A.C. Gallo
This is A.C. speaking. I am going to talk for service levels and we feel really good about our service levels. One of the things we have done is, even though we have reduced quite a few positions at the regional offices and at the global office in Austin, most stores did not have a lot of reduction in team members, it is been more through attrition that we have done that. So, we’ve been able to really protect most of our full-time team member positions and our team members are really appreciative of that. And what a lot of a reasons have done is they have actually done a renewed focus on customer service, so we have got a lot of training programs going on right now in the regions and team members are very appreciative not only that they feel like we really trying to protect their jobs by cutting cost in other areas, but also that we have renewed focus on customer service in the stores.
Walter Robb
This is Walter picking up the questions on the categories. I think the general trend of people cooking more for themselves preparing more at home, I think that continues in this quarter with strength in center store, but we have also seen some pickups in meat with trade downs to the poultry and the pork area and particularly the less expensive cuts of meat, the rounds, the groins, that sort of thing. And I think it has responded well to our value efforts and pricing. You know overall in the pricing question, I think we are really pleased, I think the sense across the company is that we have, you know we tack pretty hard the value last summer, early last summer and we are seeing – we are feeling, we are hearing from our customers more importantly that we are getting some traction with those efforts. That they are noticing it, I mean, I had a customer telling me other day in the store, I just want to know, I’ve been a long time customer and I notice what you are doing and I appreciate it. We are getting that sort of feedback, so it is always a dance to balance the investments to make sure you are getting the return and it is hard to judge that in this sales environment, but I think across the company we feel pretty good about the traction we are beginning to get on those investments.
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