Safeway on Thursday reported a 1.3% annual sales lift to $44.2 billion for its fiscal 2012. The year-end sales lift was driven by increased fuel sales and a same-store sales increase of 0.5% (excluding fuel), the grocer reported.

However, from listening to this last conference call, coming out of a year that has been framed more by Safeway's challenges than Safeway's opportunity on Wall Street, you get the sense that 2012 was 2012 and that this 2013 party has only just begun.