State of the Consumer: (1) While government stimulus was successful at buoying the 2-year annual growth rate for total retail sales to a level slightly higher than pre-lockdown results, there was a clear market share shift among industries as consumers pivoted to a new reality; (2) The key question is how much grocery spend will return to the restaurant space over time?
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• While 2020 was perhaps the industry’s worse year ever, there were definitely winners and losers mixed-in the overall results.
• To this end, relative $1B+ chain outperformance reflected the clear benefit of scale – helping the national brands to pivot around tech, access and marketing in ways which the smaller players were not able to replicate.
• Executive summaries for Wendy’s, Domino’s, and Little Caesar’s.
• We decided to survey franchisees to check comments from some 1Q21 investor calls in which management teams portrayed the labor market as possibly one of the worst ever.
• Despite a relatively high level of unemployment, it seems clear that the industry is facing a labor shortage.
Insights Journal: Marketing Spend Analysis; Retail Sales Pop in March; Chick-fil-A Continues to Amaze; Executive Summaries for Jack & Chili’s.
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● Mipcap’s Doug McKenzie on lessons learned from 2020.
● Highlights from RR’s Finance & Valuation report is based on survey responses from 50 finance companies.
● RR’s Remodel Report highlights.
● Panera report executive summary.
