RBI
Shareholders of Restaurant Brands International (QSR) have approved a remuneration package that will pay executive chairman Patrick Doyle US$116.7 million over the following five years. The remuneration proposal for RBI's named executive officers won 74.5% approval at its annual meeting of shareholders on Tuesday, while 25.5% voted against it, according to documents filed with the Canadian securities regulator. The backing followed unfavorable recommendations from two significant proxy advisory companies. Prior to the meeting on Tuesday, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) and Glass Lewis both published reports outlining their concerns over Doyle's remuneration package and urging shareholders to vote against it. The executive chairman of RBI, Doyle, a former CEO of Domino's Pizza, will not be paid a salary or be eligible for the company's annual bonus scheme. However, during a five-year period, his sign-on compensation plan, which consists of performance-based and time-vested stock options, will be worth US$116.7 million.
View our QSR Burger King deep Dive Black Book Replay HERE
Costco and the consumer
Highlights from the COST quarter and the changing consumer behavior.
Weakness in fresh protein - "like within fresh protein, we've always seen when there's a recession, whether it was '99 -- '08, '09, '10, we would see some sales penetration shift from beef to poultry to import. We have seen some of that now."
Switch to canned – “I think anecdotally, I heard a few months ago from our Head of Food and Sundries buyer that we saw some switch even to some canned products, canned chicken and canned tuna and things like that."
Increased Private label – “I think last quarter, I mentioned that on a year-over-year basis, whether it's a 150 basis point increase in private-label, sales penetration, and this year, at the end-of-the quarter was 120 basis points, so still over a full percentage point delta in sales penetration. If you go back over the last 10 years, my guess is that on a year-over-year basis, maybe we've gone from, I'm guessing, 22% or 23%, the 25% or 26%, so call it 300 basis points over 10 years or eight years, so you 30 basis points to 50 basis points versus 120 basis points and 150 basis points in the last couple of quarters.”
Slowing Big ticket – “Our average daily transaction or ticket was down 4.2% worldwide and down 3.5% in the U.S., impacted in large part from weakness in bigger ticket non-foods discretionary items.”
Looking for bargains – “So, yeah, that would again and at least anecdotally suggest that we've seen people looking for better bargains. We try to correct people when they said it was a downgrading and argue it is an upgrade when they went to Kirkland Signature.
Seasonal Jobs
The 25th annual Eating and Drinking Place Summer Employment Forecast from the National Restaurant Association predicts that restaurants will add 502,000 seasonal jobs this summer.
The seasonal hiring would be at its highest level since 2017, when restaurants and bars added 530,000 summer positions. The positive summer job estimate is being driven by a pre-summer boost in the restaurant industry's prime labor pool, even if the general labor market is still tight. Young people and teenagers, the age groups most likely to work seasonal jobs, are rejoining the labor sector in greater numbers than in previous years. Seasonal hiring varies significantly by state and is influenced by weather changes as well as the reliance on summer travel and tourism. For these reasons, states in the northeast typically see the strongest growth in restaurant jobs during the summer months. The states projected to register the largest proportional employment increase during the 2023 summer season are Maine (31%), Alaska (20%), Rhode Island (17%), Delaware (17%), New Hampshire (12%), New Jersey (12%) and Massachusetts (11%). The states projected to add the most eating and drinking place jobs during the 2023 summer season are New York (45,000), California (39,500), Texas (36,500), New Jersey (30,800), Massachusetts (27,000), Illinois (23,600), Ohio (19,600), Michigan (18,700) and North Carolina (18,100). Due to the fact that their busiest seasons for travel and tourism are not in the summer months, Florida (-8,700) and Arizona (-2,500) are projected to register declines in eating and drinking place employment during the 2023 summer season. View the summer employment forecast for every state.
