LOS ANGELES, May 12 (Reuters) – Whole Foods Market Inc (WFMI.O) reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings and raised its full-year profit and sales forecasts due to improving trends, sending its shares up 5 percent.

The Austin, Texas-based seller of organic and natural foods said on Wednesday it earned $67.5 million, or 39 cents per share, for the fiscal second quarter ended April 11. That compared with net income of $35.3 million, or 19 cents per share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Analysts, on average, had expected a profit of 33 cents a share in the latest quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales grew to $2.11 billion from $1.86 billion.

The company’s new 2010 forecast calls for identical-store sales growth of 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent and earnings of $1.33 to $1.37 per share. It had previously called for identical-store sales growth of 2.9 percent to 4.9 percent and per-share earnings of $1.20 to $1.25

It also boosted its same-stores sales growth target to 6 percent to 7 percent from 3.5 percent to 5.5 percent.

Same-store sales measure sales at stores open at least a year, while identical-store sales exclude stores that have moved or been renovated.

Shares of Whole Foods, which closed at $40.25 on the Nasdaq, rose to $42.25 in after-hours trade. (Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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