Cava CEO谈环孢子虫、餐饮趋势与增长前景

9% comp growth. That was great. That was above estimates. Uh, talk to me a little bit about the forecast. You maintain the forecast, you didn't you didn't cut it, but you didn't raise it either. Why not? Well, we want to be prudent with our guidance and take into account what we noted to be the impact of some of the broader concerns around food safety issues, even though our supply chain or ingredients have not been connected, uh, to the, the issues, uh, as well as some of the inflationary pressures that may persist throughout the year, and then certainly the volatile, uh, geopolitical and macroeconomic environment.

So we want to be prudent with that guidance, but very pleased with the, uh, the strength we saw in the quarter. Uh, just to be clear, there's been, uh, no link at all, uh, to this outbreak to cover. But I do have to ask you, as a restaurant CEO, I'm sure you had to take a close look at your supply chain, your food quality, to make sure, uh, that there was no concern. You're confident right now, uh, that your supply chain is clean.

None of your customers have gotten sick. And that going forward, uh, you can sell with confidence. That's correct. No, uh, there has been no connection to our supply chain. We have not been contacted by any public health officials. Uh, but we are closely monitoring the situation. We have an external, uh, advisory committee of industry leading experts, because food safety is paramount to what we do. It's foundational to our guests relationship.

And we want to make sure that, uh, our guests have the confidence that we are committed to having a food safe haven. Just one other quick question on that. Have you been in contact at all with any health officials, either at the federal level or at the state level? No, no, we have not been contacted, nor have we been involved in again, we have not had any connection within our supply chain to any ingredients or farms or facilities that were impacted by the recent, uh, issues.

You're also opening restaurants at a pretty aggressive pace, I think 17 this quarter and around nearly 500. How much of this is how much of this growth is Covid specific, or how much of this is really, uh, maybe consumers trading down restaurants for more fast casual meals like caviar? Yeah. We see people trading into caviar from full service restaurants, from other limited service restaurants, or as an alternative to the grocery store.

Our food is very unique, differentiated, not easily recreated at home, and I think people are shifting their diets more and more to a mediterranean style diet. It's the number one ranked diet for nine years, running and delivering on all the needs that the modern consumer is looking for protein dense, fiber rich, nutrient dense cuisine that is flavorful but also helpful for you. Well, I'm curious that I was looking to the conference call transcript and the GOP one issue was addressed as that big here.

And you talked about this idea that people are actively reshaping their orders, uh, doubling up protein, adults ordering kid sized portions, uh, etc., etc.. So give me a sense as to how you're adapting to that. Are you anticipating that these types of trends are indeed long term structural, and not just some fad that will move away from in a couple of we think GOP is are kind of just one part of this larger shift to people more interested in longevity in health and wellness, but also bolder, more interesting flavors.

And that's where our food sits at the intersection of. So we feel like whether it's GLP or some of these other secular trends, it's moving more people to our style of eating. Mhm. And you also called out which is interesting to me, the pomegranate glazed Southland. Is that part of this new strategy introducing more higher end items and hopefully driving sales when it comes to that. Because even the extra Peter chips.

I don't think I've ever paid extra for a chip, but it seems like people are. Yeah, well, we are seeing people opt into our premium proteins and attachment items, and salmon was really to have our first seafood item on the menu. Seafood is a core aspect of the Mediterranean diet, and we wanted to make it available to our guests. So very excited to have that on the menu and the reception that it's received from our guests.

Another interesting thing, digital sales are now 39% of your revenue, and I'm guilty of ordering. And you know, your order is like something $20. The delivery fee, something like $10. Is that becoming the new trend now, and is that what you see? What will be the next leg to push Carver's growth further? We see growth in all of our channels. And we we don't think it's an either or. We think it's an. And we want to have great digital channels and great physical channels.

That's why we've invested recently in Project Soul, which creates even warmer environments, better aesthetics in our dining room. So if you do choose to have a meal, you feel like you can have it in our dining room and be comfortable. Or if you're running errands, you can use the app or even have it delivered to you. Because we know that most of our guests, depending on the day of the week or where they are in the world in their need, they cross-channel traffic us.

So we want to be equally as relevant across those different channels. Talk to me about your marketing strategy because we were talking earlier about, you know, the GOP want and the eating healthy. My first thought was, okay, how are you, uh, selling that to the public? But I remember looking at your marketing at least. What's in the filing there? You don't spend a whole lot on advertising a market, at least not relative to some of the other fast casual, fast food chains.

We've been very, uh, able to be very efficient with our marketing. We've seen great word of mouth, uh, great user generated content on social media and our community day program. And we open a new restaurant in every market that we open, and we invite our new neighbors to our table for a free meal. We suggest, uh, donations will match. Those donations are not required, but if you do donate will match it. And that goes to a local philanthropic food partner addressing, uh, food insecurity in the, uh, in the market.

But do you think that that that might have to change? I mean, as this company matures and you start to reach saturation point to certain markets, I mean, there is this idea of making sure people are always aware that you're there, uh, because there are a lot of options out there, but there's always opportunities for us to continue to grow our brand awareness beyond just opening restaurants and some of the activities we do today.

And an example of that is we just did our Mediterranean Summer supper series. So we did, uh, three different cities. We brought people to a communal table together to celebrate food, to celebrate, uh, meeting one another in a human connection form. So we're big about human connection, and our brand is part of the Mediterranean way. The Mediterranean hospitality, the Mediterranean lifestyle. Not just the food, but the hospitality and the human connection.

So you'll see more, uh, in real life marketing activities like that, that help drive that human connection. And your restaurant level margin fell some 60 basis points. I mean, we know that you've got strong sales growth, but costs are not standing still. I mean, inflation is all we talk about. How much more can you absorb before you have to raise prices again? Well, that's been part of our long term strategy where we've wanted to under price inflation this year was no different.

Uh, we took about a 1.5% menu price adjustment in January with no plans to take further price increase where inflation is running north of 3% this year. So we've in recent years under price CPI by over 10%, taking less than half the price increase of the average restaurant company. Really to invest in our guest and help grow that value proposition each and every