Vending

United Natural Foods suffers Q1 2024 earnings loss on slight sales gain

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December 8, 2023

United Natural Foods Inc. suffered an earnings loss on a slight sales gain for fiscal Q1 2024 against the prior year period, according to an earnings report. Highlights include:

• Net sales rose 0.35% from $7.53 billion in Q1 2023 to $7.55 billion in the quarter ending Oct. 28, 2023, primarily driven by inflation and new business within the "supernatural" channel, which grew by 6.5%. However, this growth was largely negated by a decrease in units sold across other channels, with chains and independent retailers experiencing declines of 1.2% and 2.5%, respectively.
• The company's net loss stood at $39 million, a stark contrast to the net income of $66 million in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year. This resulted in a 67-cent loss per diluted share compared to an income per diluted share of $1.07 in the prior year.
• Adjusted EPS fell 103.5% to a 4-cent loss from $1.13 year-over-year.

Shares traded today at $15.31 against a 52-week range of $12.88 to $43.95.

The approximately $7.6 billion in quarterly revenue missed analyst expectations by $20 million while the 4-cent adjusted EPS loss beat expectations by 30 cents, according to Seeking Alpha.

"Our performance this quarter exceeded our expectations as we drove improved operational execution, which helped deliver savings from our near-term value creation initiatives earlier in the year than previously expected," CEO Sandy Douglas said in the press release. "These savings partially offset the anticipated decline in procurement gains resulting from lower levels of inflation."

The company updated its fiscal 2024 outlook for net loss and EPS to reflect non-cash asset charges and a gain on sale, while reaffirming expectations for net sales, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS and capital and cloud implementation expenditures.

The company anticipates net sales to remain between $30.9 billion and $31.5 billion, with adjusted EBITDA between $450 and $550 million.