Govt. shutdown dings Nash Finch in Q3

Leading food wholesaler Nash Finch said its third quarter sales growth was cut in half as a result of the government shutdown in September.

Total sales increase 3.5% to $1.56 billion during the period ended October 5, but the rate of growth would have been nearly double without the government shutdown which impacted defense department commissaries that are Nash Finch customers.

"We continued to experience solid sales performance across all of our business segments in the third quarter. Excluding the impact of the government sequestration and shutdown, our total company sales growth would have been over 7%”, said Alec Covington, president and CEO of Nash Finch.

The closure of commissaries caused by the government sequestration and shutdown reduced Military segment sales by approximately $60.2 million in the third quarter.

“Excluding the $60 million sales impact from the government shut down and sequestration, our third quarter Military sales would have been above the prior year by approximately 1.9%,” said Covington. “We are pleased that the commissaries are all back open for business and delivering the important commissary benefit upon which our military heroes and their families have come to rely. We look forward to being able to serve even more of our military heroes and their families once our perishable and frozen addition at our Landover facility is open early next year. The combination of the expanded operations in Landover and leveraging our world-wide military distribution network should lead to additional growth in the military segment."