Albertsons stock plunges as it says weaker grocery spending will cut into sales and earnings

The company said it is now “moving decisively” to invest in the customer experience because it believes that will improve its growth trajectory.

“In the first quarter, our digital and pharmacy businesses continued to deliver strong growth, while core grocery faced increasing pressure from softer industry unit trends and a more cautious consumer,” CEO Susan Morris said in a statement.

The company’s outlook cut comes amid broader signs that U.S. consumers have scaled back their grocery trips. Food inflation and tighter budgets due to high gas prices, among other factors, appear to be hurting spending.

For the full year, Albertsons said it now expects net income between $1.75 and $1.85 per share, down significantly from its previous expectation of between $2.22 and $2.32 per share.

It also lowered its adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of between $3.55 billion and $3.625 billion, compared with a previous projection of between $3.85 billion and $3.925 billion. It also now expects identical sales, a metric similar to comparable sales, to be in a range of down 1.5% to down 0.5%, compared with a previous expectation of flat to up 1%.

For the first fiscal quarter of the year, the company reported that identical sales fell 0.8%. Albertsons reported net income of $84.7 million, or 17 cents per share, compared with $236.4 million, or 41 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Still, Morris said on a call with analysts that while the pressure on consumers is weighing on near-term earnings, the company aims to “improve traffic, units, loyalty and the overall trajectory of the business over time.”