Area Pharm stores pull Spartan's sales down

1/27/2005

The 21 Pharm discount drug stores in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan had a poor sales performance in the latest fiscal quarter, dragging down sales of its parent company, Spartan Stores Inc. of Grand Rapids.

Spartan reported earnings yesterday for the quarter ending Jan. 1 at $624 million, down from $644 million for the same period a year earlier. The decline was attributed to lower sales at the Pharm and its distribution operations.

The company said Pharm store sales were off 8.8 percent to $55.6 million for the quarter compared with the year before, primarily because of a loss in prescription-drug business from workers at local auto plants whose health-care coverage requires more prescriptions be filled through a mail-order firm.