Good morning, everyone. I'm excited to kick off day two for our conference. I'm Leah Jordan, the Food Retail and Packaged Food Analyst at Goldman. And it is my pleasure to introduce the management team of Sprouts Farmers Market. We have with us today, Jack Sinclair, Chief Executive Officer, and Curtis Valentine, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you both for joining us today.
Thanks for having us.
Thanks for having us.
Great. And we're about to get into an exciting chat, but for a quick refresher for everybody in the audience, Sprouts is one of the largest natural and organic-focused grocers, with over 400 stores in 23 states. So with that, we'll get into it. I think to start us off, Jack, you and the team have executed a tremendous strategy shift for Sprouts over the past few years, with a deeper focus on your core customer base of health enthusiasts. You know, this has included a smaller, more efficient box and a more streamlined approach to promotions. But as you look back over those past few years, you know, what were some of the, a couple key steps that enabled you to achieve this transition, and maybe what were one or two of the bigger challenges along the way?
Sure. And you allude to the changes that we made, very much trying to make the business more focused on those health enthusiast customers that you referenced. And then, that in itself leads to a lot of different decisions, making stores a bit smaller, coming out of big mass promotional activity, which is designed to chase the whole of the $1.4 trillion grocery marketplace. We're focusing in on the $200 billion, that is, those health enthusiasts. And when you become more focused on that, it changes what you do in merchandising, it changes what you do in advertising and communication, it changes what you do in store format. And that whole context, the biggest challenge, which, the question you asked, Leah, was, as much as anything else, an internal challenge, because the team were very much focused on being quite traditional in their grocery approach.
And to be honest with you, the start of this exercise led us to losing customers. We probably lost about 500,000 customers overnight. So that created a little bit of drama, as you can imagine, in the company where the teams are going: "Is this going to work?" I remember going into the back of a deli one day. What I love about the company is it's a very frank company, and the people that work through our company are very comfortable with sharing what they think about what's going on. And this deli assistant said to me, "Jack, what are you doing? This is completely crazy." Because the customer base was going down at the time. All these people that were coming in for 10 for $1 corn weren't coming anymore, because we weren't doing that anymore.
It was a kind of, as much as anything else, it was getting the hearts and minds of the team, and gradually, store by store, when the profitability started going up and they're getting bonuses by store, when the team start to see a little bit of success, that starts to help the kind of momentum. Internally, we had that. That was probably the biggest challenge. The investment community, what they said to me was, "Well, this might be a good strategy, but we don't know whether it's going to work." And then in the middle of all that, well, we had a pandemic, we had record food inflation, so there was a few kind of bumps along the way, and that's probably why it's taken a little while to get us where we want to get to. But it's been fun.
Oh, great. I think that's, that's a good opener there. But following up to that, you know, a key element of your overall model is also the differentiated assortment, which is tailored to your, your health enthusiast customers. Could you just comment, you know, how you see your assortment within the competitive landscape? I know the foraging teams are also a key part of the process-
Yeah
... as well. How do they find unique products? And then how do they get the right mix of innovation across the store as well?
Yeah, I think the context of our business, because it's all focused on health enthusiasts, and increasingly, those customers have got very particular and specific dietary issues, whether it be, I want to be gluten-free, whether I want to be keto, whether I want to be paleo, whether I want to be grass-fed, whether I want to be vegan, vegetarian. All those dynamics that come in lead to us having to think pretty hard about what the assortment needs to be. And the key for us is that what we put into the stores is different to what you can find in a conventional grocery store, and that's been the focus of the merchandising team. It started from a competitive dynamic. The company started with produce back in a fruit stand back in San Diego many years ago.
So produce becomes the key factor in terms of the competitive dynamic. The other parts of the store, we try and be as completely different as you could possibly be. So that when I walk into a Walmart, and I love Walmart, worked for them at Walmart for many years, but I love, I love the guys, but they when I see a product that Walmart are selling, my first instinct is, Let's make sure we're not selling that, rather than, What are we gonna... Look at the price, or look at what. So that dynamic is different when you work for Sprouts than it is when you're working for a, a more regular grocery store, and that has led us to the foraging team. The foraging team was...
We had this vision of the truffle pigs in the forests of Slovenia, kind of sniffing about, looking for product that nobody else can find. So we kind of brought that team together. We've got a wonderful team of people who basically go out, Pitch Slam a lot of really innovative food entrepreneurs in the U.S., who we want to be the place that they want to come with their ideas. We've put innovation tables in our store where the products that we sell, you won't be able to find anywhere else in the country. And that dynamic, that team, are very much focused on: How do we find differentiation? And that's been one of the things that's evolved and developed. So when you go into our meat department, we don't have any conventional meat anymore.
It's all grass-fed, no antibiotics, all the kind of dynamics that matter to our customers, and right across the store, that's what that team are bringing to us and making it different and for the customers.
... That's great. Thank you. You know, and following up to that, given you have a very, you know, specific customer base, and this is a consumer conference, we've heard a lot of mixed commentary and data points around the consumer over the past few months. You know, could you talk about what you're seeing regarding consumer behavior and, and basket trends at Sprouts? You know, which categories are resonating the most in the current environment, and have you seen any notable shifts in behavior across your-
Sure
- customer base?
So I think one of the things we talked about at our Q2 numbers is we're having success across every category. We're seeing a pretty consistent performance online, a consistent performance in physical stores, that we have consistent performance by geography, consistent performance by the age of our stores. The old ones and the new ones are both doing well. And by category, you're seeing that trend flow through across our business, which we're very encouraged by. What are the trends that we're seeing? Non-alcohol alcohol, which strikes me as a bit of a kind of misnomer, but that category, we're seeing a lot of innovation, a lot of differentiation. That's doing well for us. Plant-based dairy, not so much plant-based meat, which saw a bit of a peak that's come down. Plant-based dairy is performing really, really well.
We're seeing some really big encouragement on that and organics across our business. Organic groceries now, organic produce is now more than 45% of our produce sales, and across the company, organic, when we double down on that in terms of bringing products in, we're seeing some real strength in there.
I'd just add, when we have that unique... Anywhere we've gone really unique and attribute-based, the further the teams have gone, those are the categories that have really led the charge for us over the last, call it, six to eight quarters. So, doubling down on that attribute-based assortment that Jack just spoke to, you know, that's the place where we really win when the teams get behind that, and so that's been encouraging to see.
That's great to hear. Yeah, I know newness drives a lot of attraction to customers for sure. Maybe just a little bit more on your core customer, if you could. You know, we've seen continued traffic growth into this-
Yeah
- Year and market share gains. Just how do you think you're attracting and retaining these customers, and how are you driving brand awareness, especially maybe in newer markets where you operate?
Yeah, there's a lot in that question. I think as you look at our core customer, the one thing you asked, and I didn't really answer the last question about what's happening in the broader dynamic of the consumer. I think things are getting a little bit tougher in the broader macro environment for consumers, and I think there's clearly evidence that it doesn't affect us so much, that discretionary purchases may be not quite as strong as they were. And the one thing we're very conscious of, if you're a vegan, you kind of stick to being a vegan, whether there's a lot of inflation or no inflation, there's a positive economy, bad economy. You kind of stick to your diet.
People have always got to eat, which always helps the food industry, and people that are particular about their diet stick to it. They don't tend to trade around. So we've got a little moat when, depending on how the economy goes, our customer base is loyal to the products that we sell, and that's clearly the dynamic that's strong about Sprouts, is when you talk to people who understand us and who they are, they usually say, "I love Sprouts." A lot of people don't get who we are, but the ones that love us, love us, and that's because of the assortment that we've got and how that all plays out going forward. So as I said, our business is pretty resilient to the broader context of the marketplace.
That makes a ton of sense. So just switching over to gross margin, you know, that's one of the things that stands out for Sprouts. You know, it's been so resilient over the last few years, as you've eliminated broad-based promotions. But we've also continued to see solid margin expansion into this year, given the number of self-help levers you have. I know we've talked about category management and supply chain improvement in the past, but seeing if you could provide an update on opportunities you still see, you know, within that self-help arena from here. And at a high level, you know, how do you think about the puts and takes between letting those tailwinds flow through to the bottom line versus, you know, reinvesting for the longer term?
Yeah, I'll start. Our focus is really bottom-line stability, so EBIT margin, staying stable and, you know, if we find gains, as we have the last few years, we intend to keep them and maintain them. From a growth perspective, it's really been an inventory management story, the last few quarters. Team's done an excellent job with shrink, and we're getting better visibility into store-level, SKU-level information in that space. You know, we're fairly young and somewhat immature business still, and so we're continuing to just put in some basic blocking and tackling around those inventory management levers. That's, you know, we've found some wins here this year, and I think there's still room to go in that space. That'll be a driver of growth in the longer term.
The supply chain will be kind of an up and down for us. We have to build capacity so that we have room for all these stores that we're bringing on, and we've done that a little bit over the last few years, and we'll need to do it again in Northern California and the Mid-Atlantic, so that'll put a little pressure on the growth, and then, after we get them open, then we start to see the leverage once we've anniversaried that, and we're adding stores to those, so it'll be some puts and takes on the supply chain side.
And then the way we manage inventory in and out, we've found some success with markdowns and just being a little bit sharper, again, store by store, SKU by SKU, as opposed to a blanket approach, and that's been really effective this year. And so we think there's some room there, within, you know, how we manage in and out inventory, how we manage shrink. That'll give us some tailwinds going forward. Again, at the end of the day, it's bottom line, EBIT stable. Some of what's driving the growth is investments we've made in SG&A and in the supply chain in order to unlock those, the potential there on the growth side and the cost side. So we'll continue to do that where we see opportunities.
We'll manage this business very prudently and very appropriately going forward, but the opportunities ahead of us are much bigger than what we've done so far. That's the excitement of being part of this organization at the moment.
That's great. Lot to look forward to there.
Absolutely.
... So going over to price gaps, you know, we've talked about how most of your assortment is differentiated. It's hard to find the like-for-like pricing in Walmart, as you mentioned. But we've often talked about produce a lot because that can appear, you know, more commoditized. You know, how do you view your price gaps in that category today? But then also, given your higher mix towards organic, you mentioned the 45% where it is today, you know, how do you think about the differences in gaps in the competitive landscape for organic versus conventional items?
Sure. Well, the organic gap on produce has always been a key driver for our business, right from the very start, and price is a key part of that, the value of our produce relative to the marketplace, and we monitor that regularly. We monitor on both organic produce and conventional produce. Our conventional produce gap are closer or significantly cheaper, but we're even more significantly cheaper on organic produce, and that's part of the competitive advantage that we have in that space is, when you're operating with a focus on conventional produce in the conventional supermarket space, you have to invest your margin in conventional, which means you have to make your margin up in organic, which creates a gap for us in the marketplace.
And we're feeling very confident that the way we're sourcing our organic produce, giving longer term commitments to growers, giving longer term commitments to the product, is allowing us to get into this kind of three-way benefit. The customer gets a good deal on organic produce, the farmer knows he can make money because he's got longer term commitments, and we can make a good margin at a competitive price. And that's the kind of dynamic that we've got into in organic produce and feeling very strong about that going forward. And that, I think, is again a little bit of a moat for us. And there's a geographic issue here. Clearly, Texas is a little bit more aggressive in pricing than Florida would be and Southern California would be.
We tend to stick to our pricing, and we monitor the gaps as other people change, but we're not flexing it too much by geography. We want to be our pricing and our margins and our control, so that we're taking control of that. But the organic piece of it, I think, is one of the unique things that's given us some strength at the moment.
I think that's again, really just the produce side of the story. So then when you get to the rest of our assortment, as Jack said earlier, really, there is no comparison, right? We try to be as unique as we can be, and so then we just manage that through elasticity, and we let the customer kind of dictate where the price needs to be, and you know, that's serving us well at the moment.
That's great. Very helpful color, given your differentiated position in the market. But just as we're talking about pricing, I think we can touch on inflation a little bit. You know, it's been fairly steady this year, overall, around 1%, well off the highs of the last few years. But given your greater fresh mix that you have, you know, sometimes there can be greater volatility within those prices, especially around produce. So what level of inflation are you seeing in your business, and how do you think it trends from here? And as you think about the back half, how do you think about the dynamics between, you know, pricing and unit trends?
Yeah, I think we've seen it stabilize, right? So I'd call it kind of a normalized, stabilized environment. As of really Q1 of this year, we're back into that kind of low single digit space. As you said, fresh is always volatile. So as we move in and out of seasons on different categories, it goes, you know, it goes up and down. But so we'll see a little bit higher inflation in that space. And then, you know, we're doing a lot with our mix towards organic, towards those premium products, and we're doing a lot with value packs and things like that to just stimulate demand with the customer in a bit of a challenging backdrop. And so we're seeing those things kind of drive AUR up a little bit as well.
So we're running a little bit higher than the traditional what you'd read in the print, but generally speaking, when you take out some of the mix noise, we're in that kind of low single digit range from an inflation perspective. And then we've seen the units come back and stabilize. You know, we've talked about that from the early days of the inflationary story, and again, similarly, back in Q1, basically back to stable, and we feel really good about, you know, where the units in the basket are, where the traffic is, and where the AUR are, and we have a nice, healthy balance, that's driving our comp right now.
And then from a macro environment, I would think it's going to. I would certainly hope. A lot of the supply chain disruption that created a lot of the inflation in the last couple of years, I think a lot of them are fading out in the industry now. So I'm hoping that it's kind of a little bit more stable from a-
Yeah, our guide-
From a management point of view.
Our guidance is on a little bit of traffic, a little bit of AUR, and flat units is kind of how we're thinking about it for the balance of the year.
Very helpful. Thank you. You know, I want to switch over to new store growth. It's also a big part of your growth story. How are you thinking about the long-term store target today? Where do you see the greatest white space? How do you select locations in new markets? And then more near term, if you could give us an update on how you're thinking about the path back to your annual 10% target.
Yeah, I think. Well, when we changed the strategy, right, we kind of put a pause on the pipeline, and that, you know, it's about a two-year development cycle, and so that really disrupted us on that front, and we've been just building our way back up, you know, 30 stores last year, we'll be at 35 this year, and we've got a really strong pipeline, over 110 sites that we've approved already and 70 signed leases, so we're in really good shape to continue to grow at a pretty good clip. The white space, you know, still, California's still got even though we have a lot of stores in California, there's still plenty of white space there. Mid-Atlantic, for sure, will be a place that we'll be growing a lot in the next few years.
And then there's still a lot of good infill opportunities, you know, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, those are places where we still have stores to go. Miami, in particular, in Florida, will be another good growth market for us. So the next, call it three years, three years plus, we have a pretty good path in the smile of America, as we say, which is up and down the coast and across the south. And then eventually, we'll need to get over into the Midwest, where there's a big white space opportunity for us as well. So it'll be about a fifty-fifty split on kind of established markets and then the markets where we're growing and emerging as we think about the go forward on stores.
What's been really encouraging is we look at places like Florida, where, you know, call it four or five years ago, we had 15 stores, and we're approaching 50 now. We've seen really good performance and good results. It was difficult through the pandemic to open stores and to get people to try a different store, particularly in a market where we weren't very well known. But what we're seeing now, they started a little slower and lower volume, but they're really comping well for us and have been for the last, you know, several years. They're outpacing the comp expectations, started a little lower, and we think they're gonna end up, you know, right where we expected them to end up when we signed them off.
So really encouraged by the performance of the stores and gives us a lot of confidence going forward in, in the growth aspiration we have.
The size of the stores was an important part of the flex in the strategy, where we were sitting on 32,000 sq ft stores, and we're now building all of the stores that Curtis is talking about. They'll be 23,000 sq ft stores. It makes the returns, but I'm so glad we did it because construction costs kind of went out of control anyway, and we're back to almost only just a little bit lower than we were at. But the opportunity for us to earn good returns at lower turnover gives us a lot of space and a lot of de-risking in the new store program going forward, and we're very encouraged by the way that's playing out.
And I think the biggest thing that's encouraging us is that the places where we're not at, when we open in Arizona or we open in Southern California, everybody knows who we are, not everybody, but a lot of people know who we are. When we open in places like Aberdeen, New Jersey, everyone goes, "Well, who are these guys?" And it's taking... I'm really encouraged by the way the marketing team are really embracing a different approach by market to try and make it come alive the way it's coming alive, and that's been an encouraging development for us. And certainly, we're at 417 stores, I think, this morning. So we'll be. There's probably 1,100 places in the United States that we could have a store that fits in with the model that Curtis and his team drive.
That we want that to be within 250 miles of our distribution center. So if we do get to the Midwest in due course, we'll need a distribution center somewhere up towards Chicago, somewhere at some point. So that driver, if you're trying to be a really strong fresh food business, the shorter the distribution mileage, the better. So this 250 miles that we brought in has been an important part, so that we're not shipping products from Atlanta down to Naples. We're actually trying to get ourselves into a place where the fresh food distribution supports a smaller store with produce at the center. So the whole thing's coming together in terms of supply chain, size of stores, cost of stores, returns within the context of the growth program that we're involved in.
Yeah, and you asked about kind of market planning and how we pick sites, and, you know, Jack alluded to the model there. So we've had a third party, you know, platform help us out, and we've got a, you know, a custom kind of view of our customer. So it's all about that target customer. It's another place where we've really evolved the way we think about the business over the five years since we changed the strategy. And so we have a good sense of who they are and where they are. And obviously, we kind of pick points on the map, so it's not just big circles, three-mile ring trade areas, and we'll take a store anywhere.
We have a Main and Main point of view on the street corner that we want to be on, and that allows our real estate team to kind of work inside out and just go right to that spot and look for real estate as close as we can find to that spot. And then we've really bolstered the process, you know, beyond the map of it and having, you know, local experts who really understand the trade areas, again, working from that kind of Main and Main pinpoint and finding us the best spots where we know a Sprouts will work. And that's, you know, that's serving us well. We're starting to see really good results.
As we get further from the pandemic, as we densify some of these markets, particularly in Florida, we're a little bit better known now than we were three or four years ago, and so we're seeing some better performance as they open.
That's great. Thank you. Just wanted to switch over to digital. This is a topic we get asked about a lot because you've had such strong growth in the digital channel over the past few years, you know, in part by, supported by, bringing in new third-party partners. So how do you think about e-commerce growth from here?
Sure.
Where could sales penetration go longer term? And then how do you think about the shopping habits? How are they different between your online and in-store customers?
Yeah. We've been really encouraged, all three partners. So Instacart from the beginning, we added DoorDash in late 2022. We added Uber about a year later, and so seeing really strong growth in all three partners, which is really encouraging. I think the two things that really give us confidence in where we're going is, you go online, you can get it anywhere, truly, you can get it anywhere. And so what is it that drives the customer to us? And so it really is, for us, confidence in that differentiated assortment. They're clearly looking for something specific when they come to us, and that gives us a lot of confidence in the assortment. And then the second piece is, we don't really see much of a difference in mix in the basket.
It looks very similar to a brick-and-mortar basket. It's a bigger basket than the brick-and-mortar basket, but it's a similar mix from a produce from a fresh perspective. And so there's a trust to what we do, and what we bring to the customer, that allows them to kind of get over that hurdle online and have a similar shop to what they would do in brick-and-mortar. So we've seen really good growth. DoorDash is in year two now and still really growing strongly. And so as we lap next year, the Uber implementation, we'd expect to see all three continue to grow. I think we've been good partners for them. They've certainly been good partners for us.
They want to be in this healthy food space on their platforms, and, so we've got a really good partnership with the three companies, and they're driving our business, as much as we are online. And, so we're excited about that, and we think there's still room to go. We're certainly planning for that penetration to continue to go up. Maybe not the 150 basis points we've seen this year, every year, but it should go up each year, and that's what we're counting on in our five-year plan.
When I joined the company, we had 2% of our sales on e-com through Instacart. And I remember an interview for the job, saying to the board, "You don't need to worry about e-com. It'll just-- It's an experiential-- Sprouts is an experiential thing, and we should just concentrate on bricks and mortar." Then the pandemic came along, and we went from 2% to 15% of our sales. And to be honest, Instacart did a really nice job-
Yeah
For us, the execution, and the teams did a nice job executing it. That drifted back down to about 11, 10, 11, and it's now back up to 14. So it's gone like two, 15, 11, 14. And the context of this is, and it links to what Curtis was saying. It's really unusual for an e-com business to have as equivalent mix in fresh produce as a bricks-and-mortar business. I don't know any other place that does that, and that says our customer trusts our produce and then therefore, trusts the differentiated assortment. And the context of post-pandemic, it'll be what it'll be. I do believe there's an omni-channel dynamic that's even more intense in our organization, and we'll begin to understand that better in the future. There's a bigger omni-channel dynamic in our customer base than perhaps even everywhere else, which is a big dynamic anyway.
So it will drift up, and, but it will be where our customer takes us to, as opposed to us intentionally saying, "Oh, it's going to be twenty or seventeen or..." It'll be what it will be, and we'll manage around it. And we've got some great partners in the middle of that.
About providing access to the healthy foods that we offer, and that's what we've been pleased with. As we've added channels, you know, it's been largely incremental, which just tells you there's pools of customers out there that are in an omni-channel space looking for a different way to engage with us. And so that's been great to provide that to them, and as Jack said, we'll let them dictate, you know, what percentage of omni or percentage of e-com our business is going forward.
That's great. Okay, next, we have to talk loyalty. That's another big topic for everyone. I know this is something we're excited about. Many investors we speak with are as well. So you have a pilot underway in two cities to a bigger effort with your loyalty program. I know it's still very early days-
Yeah
- but, see if you could provide any update, or any initial learnings on the initial key-
Sure
-days from that, and then what are the next milestones you're looking for, to consider more of a national rollout?
Sure. Well, we're on a customer data journey. We're on a journey to try and, as a specialty retailer, as opposed to a broad mass retailer, understanding our customers better and better is going to be key to the future of how we evolve our merchandising, our marketing, our engagement with those customers. And we want our customers to feel that sense of joy, if you like, or that sense of engagement that's very unique within the context of how grocery schemes operate. You know, we're not about giving free gas or half price this, or discount for customers who are signed up or. This is about creating a kind of engagement and a loyalty that's the customer. And we only need the customer to spend a little bit more with us. It's not a huge number.
So as we understand it better, the whole, the whole point of the tests that we're doing in Tucson, and we're doing it in Tucson, which is an established market, and in Nashville, which is a relatively new market to us. We're trying to create the incentive for a customer to give us the information. When we get the information and they scan that information, it will be up to us to use that information really effectively. At the moment, we've got a very low number of people who share the data with us. As that expands, we'll understand that data better, we'll understand what the customer needs are, we'll understand how we can take care of that customer, communicate with that customer, and the teams are working very hard to take the data.
I've been very encouraged, first of all, by the way the teams have engaged in the two markets. Everyone's pumped up, and they're all wearing the shirts and hats, and everything's getting very exciting in the stores. Customers are engaging well with it. The numbers are in line with what we expected them to be, but we want to learn how to use that as much as anything else as we roll out. I would expect this to be making a difference to our business by the Q3, Q4, 2025 as we get it to all, but we won't be in all stores until that kind of time span, as we learn this through. Numbers are in line with what we expected it to be so far, if anything, a little bit ahead of it, and we're encouraged by the progress.
But it's only one part of this dynamic of how do we move on this customer data journey to be the person, that the company that really understands this group of customers. Because this group, for us, are our lifeblood, and we need to understand them better and better and better going forward.
I think the technology is the other piece underneath that. We've just got to make sure the technology is right, and we can take the data, you know, obviously protect it and do the right things from a customer security perspective. But then again, leverage it to do different things with the customer to simulate demand, to give them that personalized experience. So there'll be a lot of test and learn as we're working through that in the first few months and looking forward to the future on that front.
Great. That's very helpful. Thank you. Lots to look forward to there as well. You know, I think for our final question, I think I'll put it to you, Jack.
Yeah.
This is also another one that we get from time to time, just given, as we talked about today, you know, you've led a remarkable turnaround at Sprouts, and we can see it in the market share gains you continue to get. I mean, anyone can look at the stock price as well. But I often get asked: Okay, but how long is Jack going to stick around? Because, you know, people could look back and say, "Okay, he's done it now..." But, and I, we've seen a deep bench at Sprouts, and we've got Curtis with us today, and we've met lots of folks there, and know truly it's been a team effort. But seeing if you could address that question, you know?
Of course. Well, thanks for that question. I’m much younger than I look, and I’m looking forward to... This is an amazing company, and I’m really enjoying doing what I’m doing. It’s gonna take a lot for me not to want to be doing what I’m doing, and we’re having a lot of fun at the moment. We’ve got a remarkably strong team with Curtis and Nick at the back of the room, and Susanna, and we’ve got a remarkable team of executive leaders who are more than capable of taking this company forward, and the great thing about what we as a management team have got the opportunity at the moment.
I had the opportunity to spend some time with Stan Boney a few weeks ago, who was one of the founders of the company. And I sat with him and talked about how he got it started from his one little fruit stand to the store in 2002, and how it all evolved. And it made me realize that we're only at a point in time in terms of taking care of something that's got mileage for a long time in the future. I fundamentally believe in what Sprouts is trying to do, helping people live a little bit better, eat a little bit better. Not being preachy about it, but just, are we doing something to make the world a little bit better as a place?
Taking care of our customers, taking care of our associate, our team members, taking care of our planet, taking care of the communities around us. I fundamentally believe in that care value. We've got a value of owning it, taking responsibility, and delivering against that. A value of loving being different. I love the fact that we've got different people all around our stores. When you go into our vitamin department, you get these people who have got such passion and such knowledge for customers, but they tend to have very interesting kind of hairstyles and nose rings and tattoos, and that, and really welcoming the difference in our company, the difference in our assortment, the difference in our stores. That I have a passion for what we do.
I believe it's important, and I believe we've got this little window, me and the team, have a little window for something that will last fifty, a hundred years. There's no reason why that can't happen. So I'm kind of passionate about that and the dynamic that says, Well, yeah, I'm getting older, I suppose, but, I don't feel old.
That's very helpful. Thank you both for joining us today. This was very insightful, and look forward to the rest of the day for everyone. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Leah. Thanks, Leah.