Whole Foods suffers sixth consecutive quarter of declining sales

Whole Foods is no longer the only organic game in town. And partly because of that, the Austin, Texas-based based retailer of natural foods has been taking it on the chin lately come earnings time.

On Thursday, facing an “increasingly competitive marketplace,” Whole Foods Market announced its sixth consecutive quarter of declining comparable-store sales, causing the company to adjust its fiscal 2017 outlook and more closely examine its growth strategy.

For the fiscal first quarter of 2017, which ended Jan. 15, Whole Foods reported total sales growth of 1.9 percent to a record $4.9 billion, but a decline of 2.4 percent in comparative sales. Net income was $95 million, or 1.9 percent of sales.

“We are committed to taking every step necessary to improve comps and deliver higher returns for our shareholders,” said John Mackey, Whole Founds’ co-founder and CEO, in a press release. “To this end, we are refining our growth strategy, refocusing our efforts on best serving our core customers, and moving faster to fully implement category management. Evolving our purchasing operating model while developing data-rich, customer-centric category management capabilities," Mackey continued, "is critical to our go-forward merchandising, pricing, marketing and affinity strategies.”

For fiscal 2017, Whole Foods is updating its outlook primarily to reflect lower anticipated sales growth and new costs associated with accelerating implementation of category management.