Tuesday November 21, 2023, 07:00:00
By Mark Kalinowski
McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King (owned by Restaurant Brands International [QSR; Not Rated]) each recently reported their Q3 2023 U.S. same-store sales. In this report, we discuss how these same-store sales results — and potential results for full-year 2023 — relate to these three concepts’ average unit volumes (AUVs). We further discuss what this means for the companies, and their stocks.
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Wednesday November 15, 2023, 09:21:52
By Mark Kalinowski
Data out today from the U.S. Census shows that restaurants’ market share (with grocery stores/supermarkets making up the other component) was 55.5% in October 2023. This was only 10 basis points away from tying the all-time monthly record of 55.6%. We are somewhat surprised at this strength, as we believe that U.S. restaurant industry same-store sales in general have slowed down over the first half of Q4 2023. Nevertheless, the robust October percentage shows that, despite restaurant prices gaining steam at a more meaningful rate than grocery prices for more than a half-year now, consumers have – at least through the end of October – not meaningfully shifted food dollars back to grocery stores and supermarkets.
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Tuesday November 14, 2023, 08:54:58
By Mark Kalinowski
The latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data shows that prices for food-at-home (grocery stores and supermarkets) rose by +2.1% in October (sequentially down by -30 basis points from September’s +2.4%). This +2.4% number compares with price for food-away-from-home (restaurants) that increased by +5.4% year-over-year in October (sequentially down by -60 basis points from September’s +6.0%). This marks the 8th month in a row for which restaurant pricing is outpacing grocery/supermarket pricing, following no such months during all of 2022.
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