Whole Foods Financials 2010

Whole Foods

The 2010 fiscal year at Whole Foods ran for the year prior to September 26, 2010. This period coincided with a recession in the United States, the company's major market. Nevertheless, after sluggish growth in 2009, the company's growth trajectory picked up in 2010 again, and it recorded significant increases in both revenues and net income. This paper will analyze the financial performance of Whole Foods, based on the 2010 financial data.

Income Statement

The shareholders will likely have been quite pleased with the company's performance in 2010. The first element of performance is in the income statement, which highlights the profit/loss performance for the company. Whole Foods recorded revenue of $9 billion in the 2010 fiscal year, up from $8.03 billion in the previous year. The net income increased from $118 million to $240 million. Thus, the company not only increased sales, but it increased its margins as well. The revenues were up by 12.1% but the net income was up by 103%. The gross margin did not change much -- up from 34.2% to 34.8% - which reflects that the pricing power of Whole Foods did not change much. A 200x markup is about normal for firms in the grocery business.

Where Whole Foods improved its profits was in curtailing its internal expenses. The company's operating profit jumped from $284 million in 2009 to $437 million in 2010, an increase of 53%. The biggest expense category, direct store expenses, increased by 10.7%, so there were some gains there, but the biggest improvement in costs came with declines in pre-opening expenses and closing costs. These were high in 2008 and 2009 in part because of the restructuring that resulted from the purchase of Wild Oats in 2007, as that required store closings. There was no significant change in the number of new stores opened in 2010, so for those expenses to decline indicates that the company might be getting more efficient at that. The slightly higher efficiency in the other expense categories likely stems from the fact that Whole Foods was more dependent on same store sales in 2010 than in prior years.

Balance Sheet

The Whole Foods balance sheet reflected this relative stability. Total assets increased by 5.3%, again indicating that the company was more efficient, generating significant higher sales from roughly the same number of stores. Total liabilities declined in 2010, thereby improving the leverage that the company had. The debt-equity ratio was 1.07 in 2009 and 0.68 in 2010, a reflection of the higher efficient, the sales growth, and the reduction liabilities combined with a strong growth in retained earnings.

Cash Flows

Whole Foods recorded stable cash flow from operating activities, after a significant increase in 2009. This likely relates to the Wild Oats purchased, which significant enlarged the size of the company. Whole Foods also used funds to purchase securities, indicating that its working capital exceeded its working capital needs. Thus, the company put some money into investments to earn a return. It also paid down some of its long-term debt, something that Whole Foods had done for several years prior.

Overall

The overall assessment of the company's financial performance in 2010 is that Whole Foods did well. It grew sales and profits considerably at a time when the company itself was not expanding, and when the economy was engaged in economic stagnation, with minimal growth. This would have to qualify as good performance, so when the economy picks up, that should be good for Whole Foods.

Risks

There are a number of risks that could derail progress that a company makes. The annual report actually highlights a number of these risks, in Item 1A. The first is obviously the economy. Whole Foods did fairly well during the recession and it did not take long for its growth trajectory to improve again after a sluggish 2009 fiscal year. But in 2010, there was a lot of doubt about whether or not the economy would pick up again. For Whole Foods, which relies on a premium brand and premium pricing, the risk of a downturn would have threatened their growth trajectory. The company might have seen a downturn in growth, or just been forced to curtail any expansion plans. There is only so much that a company can do with respect to the economy, and Whole Foods' best response is simply to stick to its business plan in the long run and not change strategy to meet short-term economic conditions

The second risk factor is competition. When a business is successful, it will spawn competitors and imitators, and there is little doubt that Whole Foods is facing this. The company has competitors like Fresh Market in the east and several ones in the west to compete with, along with stores like Trader Joe's, and the more enlightened of the mainstream chains as well. If any of these competitors is able to excel and develop superiority over Whole Foods at anything, the company could see its customers leave. Only by being the best at what it does can Whole Foods effectively neutralize these competitors.

A third risk that was identified is product liability. When you sell food, you face the risk that someone gets sick from food that you sold in your store. This brings about significant liability risk, and Whole Foods' heavy emphasis on prepared foods only serves to increase this risk. There are significant liability insurance costs that are added to the company's bottom line, but the reality is that if something were to happen with respect to liability, not only would there be legal action, but there could be massive damage to the brand as well.

Control Activities

As noted, there isn't much Whole Foods can do about the economy, and it is bad business to alter a strategy you've spent twenty years refining and undermine the brand image just because there is a recession. The best action for Whole Foods on the economy is to accept cyclicality and stay the course. The best action that Whole Foods can take on competition is to outperform the competition. Whole Foods has been the best at what it does for a long while, but it needs to continue being the best.

Product liability requires significant attention to food safety. The company will need to make food safety its number one priority, in particular with its prepared food, in order to ensure that there is no risk of people getting sick from eating at Whole Foods. This is the best way to minimize risk, and should be applied throughout the store where there are perishable goods.

Overall Impression