On the Call: Whole Foods Market

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By The Associated Press

(AP) - When the recession hit, consumers made major adjustments to how they spent their money on many things, including necessities like food. That led to increased competition among grocers for those limited budgets.

Whole Foods, which was initially hit hard by the trend, has managed to rebound with some help from a new pricing strategy. The company's co-President and Chief Operating Officer Walter Robb discusses the company's pricing plans during a conference call with investors on Wednesday:

QUESTION: Are you planning proactive price reductions from here? Or it is going to be more reactive?

RESPONSE: I'm glad you used those words because I think one of the things that has happened in the last three to six months is we have become more proactive in our price investments.

And now we're able to be a lot more strategic. We have great information about what is happening in the marketplace because of our data team that every period is updating us on what competitors are doing with their prices.

And we are able to identify very selectively by competitor, by metro, by store, by category, within categories of products exactly where we want to make those price investments. So I think our ability in that regard has become a lot more sophisticated and targeted.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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