Company Name:Winn-Dixie Stores Inc.

Stock Market: NASDAQ (WINN)
Industry Sector: Retail – Grocery Stores
Market Capitalisation: $ 781.2 million (as of January 29, 2009)
Yearly Revenue: $7.3 billion (as of June 25, 2008)
Operating Income: $23 million (as of June 25, 2008)
Net Income: $12.8 million (as of June 25, 2008)
Total Assets: $979.4 million (as of June 25, 2008)

Key People: Peter L. Lynch (chairman, president, and CEO), Bennett L. Nussbaum (SVP and CFO), Frank O. Eckstein (SVP Retail Operations)
Headquarters Address: 5050 Edgewood Court, Jacksonville, Florida 32254-3699
Number of Employees: approximately 50,000 (as of June 25, 2008)
Website Address: www.winn-dixie.com

Company Overview
Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. (the “Company”) is a Florida-based company that was incorporated in 1925 as a major food retailer operating company principally under the “Winn-Dixie” banner.

The Company offers national brands, as well as many of its own private-label products. These goods are delivered from its distribution centres or right away to stores from wholesalers and manufacturers. The Company stores provide grocery, seafood, meat, produce, health, bakery, deli, floral, and beauty, and other general merchandise items. As of June 25, 2008, the Company had 63 liquor stores, 404 pharmacies, and five fuel centres. It operates grocery warehouse stores under the SaveRite banner.

The Company primarily generates its revenues and cash from the products it sells to its customers through its stores. Currently, the Company is operating 521 retail stores in five state locations in the United States, which includes Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Current Financial Overview
For the fiscal year ending June 25, 2008 (“fiscal 2008”), and fiscal year ending June 27, 2007 (“fiscal 2007”), the Company’s gross profit on sales increased $47.2 million for fiscal 2008 as compared to fiscal 2007. As a percentage of net sales, gross margin was 27.2% and 26.9% for fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2007, respectively. The increase in the Company’s gross margin was attributed to more effective management of promotional expenses and operational improvements that reduced inventory shrinks by about 20 basis points. The mix shift had a positive impact on gross profit on sales as generics provided a larger gross profit than name brands.

The Company’s net sales for 2008 increased from $4.52 million in 2007 to $7.3 billion. This increase in net sales was primarily associated to supermarket and grocery items. The Company’s fuel, pharmacy, and floral department sales comprised about 10% of net sales in both 2008 and 2007.

Identical store sales, which are sales from continuing operations stores, including stores that the Company remodelled during 2008 and excluding stores that closed or opened during the year, increased 0.9% in 2008 compared to 2007. This significant increase in identical store sales was the result of an increase in basket size, which is the average sales per customer visit on identical store sales, of 3.1%, with an offset of 2.2% by a decline in transaction count or number of customer visits on identical store sales.

Inflation was the largest contributor to the significant growth in the Company’s basket size and identical store sales increase. Other factors that impacted the Company’s identical store sales include, but are not limited to, a sales mix shift from brand name pharmaceutical products to generic; competitive activity and other general market factors; and sales increases related to remodelled stores. Find out the benefits of ssd here.