Sales at the second largest distributorship in the United States, based in Columbia, MD, according to the 2006 ID Top 50, increased 3.8% to $5.8 billion, Ahold reported, adding that they were negatively impacted by approximately 1% as a result of the decision to exit the Sofco business in the third quarter of 2005. Inflation had a negligible effect of quarterly results.
The distributorship's broadline net sales increased 3.9% to $5.1 billion while its multi-unit North Star Foodservice (click here for ID Report article about North Star) sales expanded by 3.6% to $747 million.
Ahold's first-quarter sales grew by 8.6% from a year ago to 14 billion euros ($18 billion). The multinational corporation said that much of the increase came from currency exchange rates that benefited the company. Factoring out currency exchange, sales grew by 2.1%.
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