Kroger posts modest sales growth as retail media profit jumps 20%

Digital grocery is no longer a side bet at The Kroger Co.; it is part of the profit engine. Kroger said first-quarter sales reached $46.1 billion, up from $45.1 billion a year earlier, while identical sales excluding fuel rose 1.0% and adjusted ecommerce sales jumped 19%. For Trader Joe’s managers, the sharper signal is not just the sales growth, but the more than 20% increase in Kroger Precision Marketing profit, a reminder that customer attention itself has become a revenue line.

Kroger also said first-quarter operating profit was $1.407 billion, adjusted FIFO operating profit was $1.544 billion, adjusted EPS was $1.58 and net EPS was $1.46. The company held its 2026 outlook at 1% to 2% identical sales growth excluding fuel and adjusted EPS of $5.10 to $5.30, even as it kept investing in price reductions on thousands of items. Kroger said it serves more than 11 million customers daily through its digital shopping experience and retail food stores, underscoring how its business now runs across both physical stores and digital touchpoints.

The ecommerce numbers carry more weight because Kroger said adjusted ecommerce sales exclude fulfillment-center exits in markets where it does not operate stores, the sale of Vitacost and the discontinuation of Ship Marketplace. Trade coverage said the chain’s ecommerce business turned profitable for the first time in the quarter, following a 2025 year-end review that projected $400 million in ecommerce operating-profit improvement in 2026. New chief executive Greg Foran, who took over in February 2026, has put store execution and price investment at the center of the turnaround, with one report saying he visited more than 100 stores and found only two of five in very good condition.

That should matter inside Trader Joe’s because the comparison set is shifting. Trader Joe’s still builds its brand around discovery, crew recommendations and a tightly edited in-store experience, not a sprawling app ecosystem. Its public materials say the chain only issues and accepts physical gift cards in its stores, warns that misleading online coupon or gift-card promotions are not affiliated with the company, and says screens in stores are not part of its retail media approach. It also accepts Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, cards, cash, checks up to $150, EBT and physical Trader Joe’s gift cards.

Trader Joe’s is still growing on its own terms, with public reporting in 2026 pointing to 18 new stores across 12 states and more than 20 openings planned this year. But Kroger’s quarter makes the industry message plain: the fight for loyalty is increasingly being won through fulfillment, media and data as much as by what happens in the aisle. For a chain that still prizes the store as the brand, that is the competitive question now sitting in front of every manager.