EMERYVILLE Calif. Jamba Inc., operator or franchisor of 726 Jamba Juice locations, said late Thursday that it would close 10 underperforming stores and terminate the leases on seven planned openings. The smoothie specialist also said it would eliminate 53 positions within its corporate support functions.
The moves were made as part of Jamba's earlier decision to slow unit growth this year in the face of slowed customer traffic and slumping sales. Data for the latest available quarter, ended in January, showed a same-store sales drop of 3.3 percent. Jamba plans to report its first quarter results on May 27.
The company will book a charge of $750,000 in the current second quarter for the corporate support "reorganization," but said it had yet to determine the amount of charges for the closed units and the terminated leases.
"Jamba's strategy to transform to a healthy living company is not changing," Paul Clayton, Jamba's CEO, said in a statement. "We are reorganizing our support functions and slowing down our growth of new company stores in order to focus our efforts on optimizing the performance of our existing stores."
It plans to open between 35 and 40 corporate locations this year, down from openings of 99 in 2007.
