Spartech Corp. said this morning its $3.5 million first quarter loss is driving the company to restructure is pricing practices in order to turn around its performance.

The Clayton-based plastics maker was also hurt by a $2 million loss during the quarter from consolidating operations, the company said during a morning conference call with analysts.

The company reported a 3 percent decline in sales during the first quarter from the period a year ago to $335.1 million. Spartech’s first quarter loss yielded a 12 cent loss per share.

During the conference call, Myles Odaniell, Spartech’s president and chief executive, spoke generally about examining several changes to turn around the company.

“There are plants that are not performing where they need to be and we’ll take look at that and make some decisions going forward,” Odaniell told analysts.

Changes are also needed in Spartech’s product pricing, said Randy Martin, the company’s chief financial officer. Spartech’s material costs, primarily resins, rose 12 percent during the first quarter and it expects that level to remain steady the rest of the year, he said.

Martin said the company will shift its pricing to better reflect the value of its products instead of the prices of its costs.

He also said the company isn’t doing an effective job linking its product pricing to real-time costs and that it will work to act faster in recognizing rising material costs in order to pass them on to customers.