CORE
#Thanks, <UNK>.
I think that part of the same-store sales growth is coming from our independent stores.
And so it really shows that our core strategies and our initiatives are working.
And really that's being driven by our field sales force and our territory managers.
So definitely they are, you know, they're embracing our core strategies and really trying to add the right products to their stores.
I think there still is competition again from the large chain stores and we've seen examples where a QT, opens up next to two, three, independents and take a lot of business away.
We have other smaller regional chains that do the same thing.
A Maverick opens a new store and they bring pressure on the independents.
But at the end of the day, what that does it actually propels the independent stores to embrace our strategies even more.
Because that's who they're competing with.
But they still strongly, the independents continue to grow and we continue to focus because we believe that's really the strength of the industry is the number of independent stores that are out there.
We're much higher today because of the number of stores we've added, in particular in 2016, and, of course, when we do an acquisition like Pine State, we add a lot more independent accounts.
But we we're probably higher than that level today.
And higher than I would like to be.
But again it's all about opportunities that present themselves and so we're going to continue to grow the independent account and change as they become available to us, we're going to go after that business also.
Organic growth.
Yes.
I think it, you know, traditionally it's been about 6%.
Total sales.
Total sales.
Right.
The bigger chunk coming from about a 10% growth coming from organic.
And then the remainder is really what's being driven by the chains.
So I think really in the fourth quarter we did see a downturn again, like we talked about, a little bit of a slowdown really in the center store categories, right.
So we saw our slowest growth in the fourth quarter in those categories.
But on average we're growing probably the organic is about 8% to 10% I think.
Yes.
In the fourth quarter it was about 13% of same-store sales, of the total increase in the non-cigarette sales.
Excluding all the large accounts.
Correct.
Okay.
No.
And you know, dairy again, fluid dairy tends to be the one that we saw that definitely last year and it's starting to come up a little bit this year in eggs, right.
Those are the two categories that impact us.
But we haven't seen any price decreases from many of our like beef jerky vendors (inaudible) like that.
They're sort of probably holding on to the margins.
(Laughter).
We knew who you were.
Well, first on the share repurchase, so as you know, our first priority is to invest back in the business.
And so we are spending I think, what, $50 million in 2017 for CapEx.
But we definitely intend to go forward with the share repurchase program.
And probably at a similar level to, probably close to $10 million for 2017.
And then in regards to the acquisitions.
We've talked about this in the past.
We always have ongoing discussions with various distribution companies and it's a long dance a lot of times.
And so who knows when they may happen.
The nice thing about acquisitions and I'll use Pine State as an example, is Pine State was a well-run organization.
We didn't really have to do anything.
We just basically consolidated their financials and started to integrate our sales forces up there.
But we have the ability to convert an acquisition on to our systems when we feel it's necessary.
And so if an acquisition becomes available and it's the right thing and it's the return that we're looking for, we definitely will ---+ we will make an acquisition.
So, you know, really we control the on board ---+ the conversion costs from an acquisition perspective.
Thanks.
Thank you.
