NASDAQ:JACK Jack in the Box Q2 2025 Earnings Report $20.39 +0.05 (+0.25%) Closing price 05/28/2025 04:00 PM EasternExtended Trading$20.56 +0.17 (+0.83%) As of 04:01 AM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Jack in the Box EPS ResultsActual EPS$1.20Consensus EPS $1.13Beat/MissBeat by +$0.07One Year Ago EPS$1.46Jack in the Box Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$336.70 millionExpected Revenue$345.81 millionBeat/MissMissed by -$9.11 millionYoY Revenue Growth-7.80%Jack in the Box Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2025Date5/14/2025TimeAfter Market ClosesConference Call DateWednesday, May 14, 2025Conference Call Time5:00PM ETUpcoming EarningsJack in the Box's Q3 2025 earnings is scheduled for Tuesday, August 5, 2025, with a conference call scheduled at 5:00 PM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)Earnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Jack in the Box Q2 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrMay 14, 2025 ShareLink copied to clipboard.PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by. My name is Rebecca, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Jack in the Box Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Webcast Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Operator00:00:34Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Chris Brandon, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:00:43Thanks, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining today's conference call highlighting results from our second quarter twenty twenty five. With me today are Chief Executive Officer, Lance Tucker our Interim Chief Financial Officer, Don Hooper and our Chief Customer and Digital Officer, Ryan Ostrom. Select second quarter results were preannounced on April 23 as part of our Jack on Track plan announcement. Feel free to refer to the press release and conference call, which took place that day for additional commentary related to the preannounced metrics. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:01:18For this reason, today's prepared remarks will be fairly brief. Following the prepared remarks, we will be happy to take questions from our covering sell side analysts. Note that during both our discussion and Q and A, we may refer to certain non GAAP items. Please refer to the non GAAP reconciliations provided in the earnings release, which is available on our Investor Relations website at jackinthebox.com. We will also be making forward looking statements based on current information and judgments that reflect management's outlook for the future. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:01:53However, results may differ materially from these expectations because of business risks. We therefore consider the Safe Harbor statement in the earnings release and the cautionary statements in our most recent 10 ks to be part of our discussion. Material risk factors as well as information relating to company operations are detailed in our most recent 10 ks, 10 Q and other public documents filed with the SEC and are available on our Investor Relations website. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Lance Tucker. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:02:29Thanks, Chris, and I appreciate everyone joining us today. I will be brief as we provided several key metrics as preannouncement items within our Jack on Track plan three weeks ago. First, I'd like to reiterate my excitement around the changes we're making at Jack in the Box, namely becoming a simpler asset light company that drives sustainable and healthy long term growth for our franchisees as well as our investors. While our transformation won't happen overnight, we strongly believe the actions we're taking will meaningfully change the company's directions for the better in the near future. Turning to our second quarter results, there are a couple of main themes I'd like to highlight that impacted the quarter. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:03:15First, the top line environment. It's well known that there is significant pressure on multiple income cohorts and we've seen the results in our negative traffic. There are definitely more headwinds and tailwinds at the moment for most within our industry. To combat these challenges, we remain focused on our barbell strategy, digital growth and innovative LTOs to differentiate ourselves. These elements are all fundamental to the Jack brand and each can meaningfully drive top line momentum. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:03:46While the team has a number of high priority Jack on track actions we're working through, allow me to emphasize that driving same store sales is and always will be our top priority. Second, our tech modernization and digital evolution continues to take shape, Helped by continued increases in first party activity and flip kiosks, Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:04:09we Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:04:09are now at 18% digital sales system wide. As we stated when announcing Jack on Track, digital is an area where continued investment will be tremendously important and we remain committed to becoming a digital leader within our category. The rollout of our new point of sale system is another key aspect of our technological advancement. We have successfully implemented the new system and its accompanying flip kiosks in nearly 1,500 restaurants. In our Jack on Track announcement, we mentioned that the rollout impacted second quarter sales and I would like to briefly provide some additional color into what we are experiencing. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:04:50As we integrate modern technology with our existing legacy systems, some of which are decades old, we've encountered a few challenges. These issues are unrelated to our new POS system or the partners involved in the integration. Rather, they highlight the necessity for Jack in the Box to continue overhauling its technology by investing in the rapid modernization of these legacy systems, which is already in progress. Before I move on, please note that while the sales impacts we've seen are temporary in nature and are being resolved as they arise, they do continue to impact results as we move into the third quarter. And lastly, before I turn it over to Dawn, I'd like to spend a moment reiterating our Jack on Track plan elements. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:05:36First, a reminder that there will be much more detail to come in August. As discussed during our April 23 call, our objective is to position Jack in the Box for long term sustainable growth, which we will accomplish by implementing several significant actions as follows. We will strengthen our balance sheet to accelerate cash flow and pay down debt while preserving growth oriented capital investments related to technology and restaurant reimages. We will also close underperforming restaurants to position ourselves for consistent net unit growth and competitive unit economics, and we will return overall simplicity to the Jack in the Box business model and our investor story. The team is hard at work on all of these initiatives and I look forward to updating you on our progress with more specifics on our third quarter call. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:06:29Now I'll turn the call over to our Interim Chief Financial Officer, Dawn Hooper for her remarks, after which we will take your questions. Dawn? Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:06:39Thanks, Lance, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start by reviewing our two brands individually, followed by details on our consolidated performance and capital allocation. Starting with our Jack brand, second quarter same store sales decreased 4.4% comprised of a franchise restaurant comp decrease of 4.5% and a company owned sales decrease of 4%. This result included a decrease in transactions and negative mix, partially offset by many price increases, which continued to moderate. As Lance mentioned, we continue to drive sales in our mobile and digital channels, which is essential in our efforts to increase active loyalty program membership and create personalized targeted promotions to this high value channel. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:07:31We are also excited by our kiosk implementation at both brands. Both the freestanding kiosks at Dell and the flip kiosks now active in nearly 1,500 deck locations as part of our new POS rollout. We feel great about our ability to achieve the target of 20% digital sales ahead of schedule. Turning to restaurant count. There were five restaurant openings and 12 restaurant closures in the quarter. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:08:00Jack is still expecting to open between thirty five to forty restaurants for fiscal twenty twenty five, including openings in Chicago. Jack's restaurant level margin percentage in the quarter decreased to 19.6%, down from 23.6% a year ago, driven primarily by lower sales, continued inflation for commodities, wages and utilities, as well as higher operating costs, partially offset by price increases and favorable beverage funding. More specifically, food and packaging costs as a percentage of sales declined 100 basis points from the prior year to 27.8% driven by an increase in beverage funding related to a new contract entered into last quarter and many price increases, partially offset by commodity inflation of 3.4% in the quarter. Labor costs as a percentage of sales were 33.8%, increasing three twenty basis points from the prior year. Wage inflation was 10.6% for the quarter and mainly due to wage increases to comply with California's minimum wage law, which lapped its one year mark on April 1. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:09:23Occupancy and other operating expenses increased 170 basis points driven primarily by higher rent, utilities and other operating expenses including third party delivery fees. Franchise level margin was $68,300,000 or 40% of franchise revenues compared to $71,700,000 or 40.4% a year ago. The decrease in dollars was mainly driven by lower franchise same store sales and the resulting decrease in royalty and rent revenue. Now turning to Del Taco. System same store sales declined 3.6% with a franchise sales decline of 4.2% and a company owned comp decrease of 1.7%. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:10:13The lower sales were the result of a decline in transactions, partially offset by an increase in price. As mentioned last quarter, 100% of our company owned restaurants have kiosks installed and we are continuing to see franchisees increasing their adoption rate as well. Including kiosks, along with third party delivery and mobile, digital mix now makes up over 18% of system wide sales. We are also seeing positive momentum from the menu optimization initiative, which launched system wide in the first half of Q1, driving improvements in both product mix and average check. Del Taco restaurant level margin was 12.8%, down 400 basis points from the prior year. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:11:04The decline was driven mainly by lower sales and commodity and wage inflation, partially offset by menu price increases. Food and packaging costs as a percentage of sales decreased 100 basis points to 24.6% due to favorable beverage funding, partially offset by commodity inflation of 5.7%. Labor costs as a percentage of sales increased three thirty basis points to 38.2% primarily due to wage inflation, which was 11.7% for the quarter mainly due to increases to comply with California's minimum wage law. Occupancy and other operating costs increased 160 basis points driven primarily by higher utility and maintenance and repair costs. Franchise level margin was 24.4% of franchise revenues compared to 28.9% last year. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:12:07The decrease in franchise level margin percentage was driven by refranchising and the associated impact of pass through rent, marketing and purchasing fees. Del Taco restaurant count at quarter end was five ninety one with six openings and four closures during the quarter. Moving on now to our consolidated results. SG and A for the quarter was $35,500,000 or 10.5% of revenues as compared to $37,500,000 or 10.3% a year ago. The decrease of $2,000,000 was primarily due to lower share based and incentive based compensation, partially offset by fluctuations in the cash surrender value of our company owned life insurance policies. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:12:59Excluding net COLI gains and losses as well as advertising costs, G and A was $26,200,000 or 2.2% of total system wide sales, down 4,400,000 versus the prior year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $66,500,000 down from $75,700,000 in the prior year due primarily to the impacts from Del Taco refranchising and sales deleverage and inflation experienced by both brands, partially offset by lower G and A. During the quarter, the company recorded non cash goodwill and intangible asset impairment of $203,200,000 for the Del Taco reporting unit. This charge resulted from the lower current performance and other assumption updates impacting our long term forecast and related cash flows. Due to the non cash goodwill and intangible asset impairment charge in the quarter, we reported a consolidated GAAP diluted loss per share for the second quarter of negative $7.47 compared to diluted earnings per share of $1.26 in the second quarter of the prior year. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:14:19Operating earnings per share, which includes adjustments for certain items, was $1.2 for the quarter versus $1.46 in the second quarter of the prior year. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 19.5 compared to 26.5% for the same quarter a year ago. The lower tax rate was primarily due to non deductible goodwill impairment and non deductible COLI losses. The adjusted tax rate used to calculate the non GAAP operating earnings per share this quarter was 24.8%. On the investing front, our capital expenditures were $21,500,000 for the quarter and included investments in our restaurant technology and digital initiatives as well as development of new company restaurants. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:15:14We did not repurchase any shares of stock during the quarter and as previously announced, we discontinued our dividend. As of quarter end, we had available borrowing capacity of $96,500,000 under our variable funding notes net of letters of credit issued. Our total debt outstanding at quarter end was $1,700,000,000 and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 5.5 times. Lastly, we'd like to reiterate that all guidance measures remain the same as provided on April 23 as part of the Jack on Track plan announcement. Thanks again for your time this afternoon. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:15:58Operator, please open the line for questions. Operator00:16:23Your first question comes from the line of Chris O'Cull with Stifel. Patrick JohnsonEquity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp00:16:30Thanks guys. This is Patrick on for Chris. Lance, wanted to ask you about the current trends at Jack relative to the down 4.4% you just ran in 2Q. And curious if you can provide any color around maybe where you exited the quarter. I know it was widely known in the industry February was soft and maybe how that held up as you moved into the third quarter. Patrick JohnsonEquity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp00:16:49And then as you look at the comp performance in the quarter, I was curious if there are any geographic differences that were notable particularly maybe in markets that over index with certain customer demographics? Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:17:02This is Lance. I'll start on that and I'll get some input from Ron as well. So starting with the third quarter, we're basically running in line with what we saw in the second quarter, which pretty well matches up with the guidance we've given. It remains a challenging industry environment. And as we've spoken to, we do continue to see some challenges. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:17:25They're a little bit self inflicted. Certainly, the consumer remains cautious. From other comments, I'll throw it over to Ryan here for a minute and let him jump in on anything I may have missed there. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:17:36I think you hit it right on the head. I think as we look moving forward, we're really going to be focused on our core strengths and equities as a brand. So you'll see us really focus on driving ticket through some munchie meal executions as well as driving innovation on our iconic curly fries next window and you'll see us pulse in a lot of core value to drive the value guest in to move forward. Operator00:18:10Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Silberman with Deutsche Bank. Lauren SilbermanDirector at Deutsche Bank00:18:17Thank you very much. My question is a little bit of a follow-up to the prior one. How much do you think of the comp pressure you're seeing right now is driven by company specific headwinds? You talked about the POS situation, but beyond that, is there a shortfall in the marketing strategy or approach to value given the industry is going to remain challenging? I guess, what are you doing differently in the back half that you didn't do in the first half of the year to reaccelerate comps? Lauren SilbermanDirector at Deutsche Bank00:18:42Thank you. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:18:44Thanks, Lauren. It's Lance. I'll start again and again turn it over to Ryan. Relative to company specific issues, I mean, we've mentioned some of the IT issues that we think are probably 1% to 2% in same store sales. We also over index on the low income consumers. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:19:01So I'm not sure. I'm not going to put a percentage on that. But certainly, we feel like that's probably hitting us a little harder than it is others. I don't know that I see anything that was a particular shortfall on the marketing side, but I'll let Ryan talk to what we're doing to get things accelerated in the second half of the year. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:19:18Yes. And I think if you looked in a year ago, we had some strong comps as we were rolling over the launch of Smash Jack. And so rolling over the execution of that is something we really have to focus on in the next few windows because we're really comping over the high mix of a premium burger. So that's where you'll see us really focus on that Munchie Meal and the trade up strategy with our key paying execution in the next window. Really does really well for us owning the late night, owning Munchie Meal and driving ticket. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:19:49We've seen boxed meals do really well in some of our competitors. And so we're going to lean into that equity. As mentioned before, really driving that the transaction side is focusing on our curly fries. And we have two new flavors coming out, first of its kind in the industry of Chili Crisp as well as barbecue chip flavored seasoned curly fries. These are our iconic seasoned fries. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:20:12Now we have new flavors, which should drive excitement for people to come in and just add on ticket, but also make that extra visit to try something new and innovative. And then on top of that, we are really focusing on that value guest saying, how do we look at our core offering and put out some strong core value to drive that guest in on an ongoing basis. Operator00:20:35Your next question comes from the line of Brian Mullen with Piper Sandler. Brian MullanDirector & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies00:20:42Hey. Thank you. Just a question on on Del Taco. Understanding you're exploring strategic alternatives, can you just speak to the key priorities for that brand while that process is ongoing? And, Lance, with some fresh eyes on this brand, there are one or two things in particular where you see some opportunity that maybe can get addressed as this process unfolds? Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:21:05Yes. Thanks, Brian. That's a good question. I would tell you a couple of things relative to Del Taco. First, we've got to continue to execute operationally. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:21:16And Tom Rose, the Brand President over there, and his team are working on that. We also have been revamping our marketing some. And so you're going to see a little bit different tone coming out of our marketing as we move throughout the rest of the year. And then Tom and team have some kind of exciting menu additions. Don't think I'm gonna share those exactly right now, but some things are working on on the menu, kind of looking backwards to some things we may have done in the past that I think are going to be exciting for the brand. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:21:44So continue to drive marketing, bring out innovation and drive operations. Operator00:21:56Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Charles with TD Cowen. Andrew CharlesManaging Director at TD Cowen00:22:03Great. Thank you. It looks like there was a step up in the allowance for doubtful accounts. And I'm curious as you go through the upcoming store closure program, if there's risk for elevated bad debt expense that might hit the adjusted EBITDA. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:22:16Yeah. This is Dawn. The the step up is similar to the step up or the charge that you saw in q one. It's related to one specific franchise matter on the Del Taco side. I don't anticipate the closure program would accelerate or increase it in any way. Operator00:22:36Your next question comes from the line of Dennis Geiger with UBS. Dennis GeigerExecutive Director - Equity Research at UBS Group00:22:42Great. Thanks, guys. I wanted to circle back just on value, and you guys gave some good color on it. Anything more that you can say just kind of on where you think value is positioned right now, whether it's on Scores or value incidents? And then as we look ahead, I'm not sure how much more you can kind of add on some of the value plans that are coming. Dennis GeigerExecutive Director - Equity Research at UBS Group00:23:01But anything more to share at a high level on how you're thinking about where you should be positioned on value now relative to maybe where you have been given the environment and given the competitive set? Thank you. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:23:13Yes. I think you look at our value stores, value in our business is very important. I think it's trying to find that balance of what is the right value for the dollar. I think that value has changed though. I don't think it's all about low price. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:23:26It's about guests feeling satisfied is what they purchase. So even though I mentioned Munchie Meal, we're seeing in the industry where $9 and $10 is considered a value because it's food by the pound and it's valuable for the guests. And so as you see us really focused on an ownable equity of Munchie Meal, we think there is value in that as we move forward. You also, like as I mentioned, we will be looking at our core offering and say what are those right items that we can drive the lower value guest in at the right price point. We do think we have value on the menu. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:23:58We still have our amazing two tacos on the menu. We still have a lot of items under our Munchies Under Four, which we're leaning into. So we have that wide variety. It's just making sure that that message resonates and gets people to come into the store. Operator00:24:16Your next question comes from the line of Logan Ranch with RBC Capital Markets. Logan ReichAnalyst at RBC Capital Markets00:24:23Hey, good afternoon guys. Thanks for taking my question. I guess just in a few weeks following the rollout of the Jack on Track, I'm just curious what the conversations with franchisees have been like and and sort of how they're feeling about everything that's been going on. And then just separately, I was wondering if you can share how much price you guys have been rolling have rolling off for for the rest of the year. Thanks. Logan ReichAnalyst at RBC Capital Markets00:24:46Bye. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:24:48Logan. I'll start with the first part and I'll let Ron cover the price question there. But actually the conversations with franchisees have gone quite well. In my few months on board here, they have been tremendously supportive. When you think about specific to some of the Jack on track stuff, you know, they've generally been behind it. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:25:11And I think the reason for that is those guys are all in this for the long term. These are these are long term business owners that have been in the JAK system for a long time, want to be in the system a lot longer and turn them into generational businesses. And the changes we're making with JAK on track really are more made to drive the business going forward for the next you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years than necessarily what it's going to do next quarter. So overall, I've been extremely pleased with the feedback I've gotten from the franchisees, from the reception I've gotten from the franchisees, and frankly, from their support as we line up to do a lot of things that are gonna gonna change the business for the better. So I will turn it over to to Dawn actually and and let her talk about the price we see rolling off. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:25:55Yeah. So in November, we had talked about our price being between 34%. The carryover is a little over 2%. Operator00:26:08Your next question comes from the line of Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley. Brian HarbourAnalyst at Morgan Stanley00:26:15Yes, thanks. Good afternoon. Lance, maybe to that point, where exactly are the closures going to be concentrated like geographically, I guess? And then is it a smaller number of franchisees or is it pretty broad? How do you have a different view of kind of new markets? Brian HarbourAnalyst at Morgan Stanley00:26:39Those still going to you've obviously signed a bunch of deals in new markets. Are those still going to proceed as planned? Are you still open to adding them during this time? How will that play out? Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:26:54All right, Brian. First of all, as it relates to the closure program, we're going to give a lot more detail in August as to exactly what that's going to look like. At a high level, it's going to be spread throughout the system. So there's not going to be know, what I would think to be a huge concentration in any one given area. I think as far as is it concentrated to a set number of franchisees, you know, we're gonna do our best to spread it actually among a fairly broad number of franchisees. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:27:26It is largely going to be driven on economics. Sometimes you're going to have a given franchisee who may have more closures than others. Certainly, that's going to be the case. But with that said, we are going to try to keep it pretty broad among the franchise base. And then finally, with regard to new markets, I do expect we'll continue to grow in new markets. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:27:48We think we've got a lot of white space. We think we've got a lot of ability to grow. I think the bigger change from my perspective would be we want it to be more franchisee led than corporate led. So we will continue to meet the obligations we've made as far as building a long term franchisees in some of these markets. We'll just take a little bit less active role and how many of those are actually restaurants that we own versus restaurants we'll be asking the franchisees to build. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:28:16But absolutely, we want to keep going on those new markets. Operator00:28:22Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Bernstein with Barclays. Jeffrey BernsteinAnalyst at Barclays Capital00:28:31Thank you very much. Lance, just hoping I could talk a little bit more about Del Taco. I know you mentioned a variety of strategic alternatives including possible divestiture. I'm just wondering what the other options would be. It would seem like if you're looking to simplify the portfolio, the divestiture would be, I guess, your preferred route. Jeffrey BernsteinAnalyst at Barclays Capital00:28:50But just curious to hear your thoughts there and whether you're pleased with any kind of early interest or how you think about the potential divestiture and timeframe for such? Thank you. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:29:05I think overall, you know, I can't I can't get too deep into Del Taco as you would as you would guess, at least the potential sales process. What I would tell you though is we we've had a lot of retail. We haven't even gone to official marketing yet on the thing. We're still, you know, directionally a few weeks out on that without going into a lot of depth, and we have had significant reach out and interest in the brand. So as you that's probably about as far as I can go on that when you think about other alternatives. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:29:35I think given given the early returns on on the interest we seem to be getting, I feel pretty solidly that that would be the the option we would go down. Operator00:29:52Your next question comes from the line of Jake Bartlett with Trist Securities. Jake BartlettSenior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities00:29:59Great. Thanks for taking the question. I'm going to just build on one of the earlier ones about new unit development. And I guess, Lance, your excitement and level of commitment to that strategy. Maybe if you could also just give us an update on how many restaurant commitments you have outstanding, how many development agreements is something that had been disclosed pretty regularly and I just want to see where progress is there. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:30:29Sure. So first of all on new units, I mean, are excited to continue growing first of all. I think the key with what we're doing on the Jack on Track stuff is really make sure we're set up with a good healthy franchise base that can grow from a position of strength. So while we are going to have some closures here coming down the road as you've seen from our announcements, I think where that's really going to net us is franchisees that are not dragging along some units, frankly, that probably need to close. It's going to free up dollars. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:31:07We expect some of those dollars to flow in the new unit builds. And then to piggyback on the new market question from a few minutes ago as well, we've got Chicago where we expect to convert around eight, I believe it is, by the end of the fiscal year. We've got builds happening in other markets, whether it's Louisville, Salt Lake City. We're getting ready to be opening some units in Florida. So there's a lot going on there too. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:31:34So I think from a new unit standpoint, the picture still looks good. We just got to get it through a few closures here before you'll start to see it in the net in the net numbers. As it relates to the to the development numbers, I don't have those in in front of me at the moment. So that'll be something we'll need to circle back on. Operator00:31:58Your final question comes from the line of Christine Cho with Goldman Sachs. Christine ChoAnalyst at Goldman Sachs00:32:04Thank you for taking the question. So would you be able to share some observations on the various sweetheart performances in the quarter? Are you seeing any particular pressure on breakfast or late night? And how are you seeing the market share progressing? Thank you. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:32:21No. We we when we look across daypart, I think we we've kinda seen a little bit, especially at the lunch and dinner time, but it's kind of been spread out evenly across. We had some success over the last this past window that we really are trying to build off where we actually quickly sold out of Nashville hot mozzarella sticks. We had a great partnership with Red Bull that moved really well. So we've had success at certain executions and add ons that we're really going to start building off moving forward. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:32:52And our goal as we mentioned before is really focused on that barbell strategy with the balance of driving ticket with some of our core equities while also introducing some more value to drive trends. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:33:05And I'll just quickly chip in with I think you were looking for the development agreement or restaurant commitment number and it's since mid-twenty twenty one, which is kind of where we've kept the running total going. It's at $4.40. Operator00:33:29Ladies and gentlemen,Read moreParticipantsExecutivesChris BrandonVP - IRLance TuckerCEODawn HooperInterim Principal Financial OfficerRyan OstromChief Customer & Digital OfficerAnalystsPatrick JohnsonEquity Research Associate at Stifel Financial CorpLauren SilbermanDirector at Deutsche BankBrian MullanDirector & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler CompaniesAndrew CharlesManaging Director at TD CowenDennis GeigerExecutive Director - Equity Research at UBS GroupLogan ReichAnalyst at RBC Capital MarketsBrian HarbourAnalyst at Morgan StanleyJeffrey BernsteinAnalyst at Barclays CapitalJake BartlettSenior Equity Research Analyst at Truist SecuritiesChristine ChoAnalyst at Goldman SachsPowered by Key Takeaways Under the Jack on Track plan, the company is evolving into a simpler, asset-light operator by strengthening its balance sheet, closing underperforming restaurants, and streamlining its business model to drive long-term sustainable growth. Second-quarter same-store sales declined 4.4% at Jack in the Box and 3.6% at Del Taco, reflecting negative traffic amid consumer headwinds and inflation, although digital sales grew to 18% of system-wide revenues. The rollout of a new POS system and flip kiosks in nearly 1,500 restaurants accelerated the chain’s digital transformation but caused temporary sales disruptions as legacy systems were integrated. The company took a non-cash goodwill and intangible asset impairment charge of $203.2 million on the Del Taco reporting unit after revising long-term performance forecasts. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA fell to $66.5 million from $75.7 million year-over-year, with GAAP EPS swinging to a $7.47 loss per share (vs. $1.26 gain last year) and adjusted operating EPS at $1.20 (down from $1.46). AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallJack in the Box Q2 202500:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xTranscript SectionsPresentationParticipants Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Jack in the Box Earnings HeadlinesJack in the Box (NASDAQ:JACK) Stock Rating Lowered by Truist FinancialMay 29 at 1:31 AM | americanbankingnews.comJack in the Box Names Hooper as Chief Financial OfficerMay 28 at 6:58 PM | marketwatch.comGold Hits New Highs as Global Markets SpiralWhen Trump took office in 2017, gold was just $1,100 an ounce. By the time he left, it had soared to $1,839. Now… as new tariffs take effect, gold is breaking records again. You've hopefully already seen this in action… but gold is surpassing $3,000 per ounce for the first time EVER.May 29, 2025 | Premier Gold Co (Ad)Jack in the Box Inc. Announces Dawn Hooper as Its Chief Financial OfficerMay 28 at 4:05 PM | businesswire.comINVESTOR ALERT: Pomerantz Law Firm Investigates Claims On Behalf of Investors of Jack in the Box Inc. - JACKMay 26 at 10:00 AM | prnewswire.comExciting New Menu Updates You Can't Miss from Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, and MoreMay 22, 2025 | msn.comSee More Jack in the Box Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Jack in the Box? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Jack in the Box and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Jack in the BoxJack in the Box (NASDAQ:JACK) operates and franchises Jack in the Box and Del Taco quick-service restaurants in the United States. The company was founded in 1951 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.View Jack in the Box ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles Bullish NVIDIA Market Set to Surge 50% Ahead of Q1 EarningsAdvance Auto Parts: Did Earnings Defuse Tariff Concerns?Booz Allen Hamilton Earnings: 3 Bullish Signals for BAH StockAdvance Auto Parts Jumps on Surprise Earnings BeatAlibaba's Earnings Just Changed Everything for the StockCisco Stock Eyes New Highs in 2025 on AI, Earnings, UpgradesSymbotic Gets Big Earnings Lift: Is the Stock Investable Again? Upcoming Earnings CrowdStrike (6/3/2025)Broadcom (6/5/2025)Oracle (6/10/2025)Adobe (6/12/2025)Accenture (6/20/2025)FedEx (6/24/2025)Micron Technology (6/25/2025)Paychex (6/25/2025)NIKE (6/26/2025)PepsiCo (7/10/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. Start Your 30-Day Trial MarketBeat All Access Features Best-in-Class Portfolio Monitoring Get personalized stock ideas. Compare portfolio to indices. Check stock news, ratings, SEC filings, and more. Stock Ideas and Recommendations See daily stock ideas from top analysts. Receive short-term trading ideas from MarketBeat. Identify trending stocks on social media. Advanced Stock Screeners and Research Tools Use our seven stock screeners to find suitable stocks. Stay informed with MarketBeat's real-time news. Export data to Excel for personal analysis. Sign in to your free account to enjoy these benefits In-depth profiles and analysis for 20,000 public companies. Real-time analyst ratings, insider transactions, earnings data, and more. Our daily ratings and market update email newsletter. Sign in to your free account to enjoy all that MarketBeat has to offer. Sign In Create Account Your Email Address: Email Address Required Your Password: Password Required Log In or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google Forgot your password? Your Email Address: Please enter your email address. Please enter a valid email address Choose a Password: Please enter your password. Your password must be at least 8 characters long and contain at least 1 number, 1 letter, and 1 special character. Create My Account (Free) or Sign in with Facebook Sign in with Google By creating a free account, you agree to our terms of service. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
PresentationSkip to Participants Operator00:00:00Thank you for standing by. My name is Rebecca, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Jack in the Box Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Webcast Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Operator00:00:34Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Chris Brandon, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:00:43Thanks, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining today's conference call highlighting results from our second quarter twenty twenty five. With me today are Chief Executive Officer, Lance Tucker our Interim Chief Financial Officer, Don Hooper and our Chief Customer and Digital Officer, Ryan Ostrom. Select second quarter results were preannounced on April 23 as part of our Jack on Track plan announcement. Feel free to refer to the press release and conference call, which took place that day for additional commentary related to the preannounced metrics. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:01:18For this reason, today's prepared remarks will be fairly brief. Following the prepared remarks, we will be happy to take questions from our covering sell side analysts. Note that during both our discussion and Q and A, we may refer to certain non GAAP items. Please refer to the non GAAP reconciliations provided in the earnings release, which is available on our Investor Relations website at jackinthebox.com. We will also be making forward looking statements based on current information and judgments that reflect management's outlook for the future. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:01:53However, results may differ materially from these expectations because of business risks. We therefore consider the Safe Harbor statement in the earnings release and the cautionary statements in our most recent 10 ks to be part of our discussion. Material risk factors as well as information relating to company operations are detailed in our most recent 10 ks, 10 Q and other public documents filed with the SEC and are available on our Investor Relations website. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Lance Tucker. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:02:29Thanks, Chris, and I appreciate everyone joining us today. I will be brief as we provided several key metrics as preannouncement items within our Jack on Track plan three weeks ago. First, I'd like to reiterate my excitement around the changes we're making at Jack in the Box, namely becoming a simpler asset light company that drives sustainable and healthy long term growth for our franchisees as well as our investors. While our transformation won't happen overnight, we strongly believe the actions we're taking will meaningfully change the company's directions for the better in the near future. Turning to our second quarter results, there are a couple of main themes I'd like to highlight that impacted the quarter. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:03:15First, the top line environment. It's well known that there is significant pressure on multiple income cohorts and we've seen the results in our negative traffic. There are definitely more headwinds and tailwinds at the moment for most within our industry. To combat these challenges, we remain focused on our barbell strategy, digital growth and innovative LTOs to differentiate ourselves. These elements are all fundamental to the Jack brand and each can meaningfully drive top line momentum. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:03:46While the team has a number of high priority Jack on track actions we're working through, allow me to emphasize that driving same store sales is and always will be our top priority. Second, our tech modernization and digital evolution continues to take shape, Helped by continued increases in first party activity and flip kiosks, Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:04:09we Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:04:09are now at 18% digital sales system wide. As we stated when announcing Jack on Track, digital is an area where continued investment will be tremendously important and we remain committed to becoming a digital leader within our category. The rollout of our new point of sale system is another key aspect of our technological advancement. We have successfully implemented the new system and its accompanying flip kiosks in nearly 1,500 restaurants. In our Jack on Track announcement, we mentioned that the rollout impacted second quarter sales and I would like to briefly provide some additional color into what we are experiencing. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:04:50As we integrate modern technology with our existing legacy systems, some of which are decades old, we've encountered a few challenges. These issues are unrelated to our new POS system or the partners involved in the integration. Rather, they highlight the necessity for Jack in the Box to continue overhauling its technology by investing in the rapid modernization of these legacy systems, which is already in progress. Before I move on, please note that while the sales impacts we've seen are temporary in nature and are being resolved as they arise, they do continue to impact results as we move into the third quarter. And lastly, before I turn it over to Dawn, I'd like to spend a moment reiterating our Jack on Track plan elements. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:05:36First, a reminder that there will be much more detail to come in August. As discussed during our April 23 call, our objective is to position Jack in the Box for long term sustainable growth, which we will accomplish by implementing several significant actions as follows. We will strengthen our balance sheet to accelerate cash flow and pay down debt while preserving growth oriented capital investments related to technology and restaurant reimages. We will also close underperforming restaurants to position ourselves for consistent net unit growth and competitive unit economics, and we will return overall simplicity to the Jack in the Box business model and our investor story. The team is hard at work on all of these initiatives and I look forward to updating you on our progress with more specifics on our third quarter call. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:06:29Now I'll turn the call over to our Interim Chief Financial Officer, Dawn Hooper for her remarks, after which we will take your questions. Dawn? Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:06:39Thanks, Lance, and good afternoon, everyone. I will start by reviewing our two brands individually, followed by details on our consolidated performance and capital allocation. Starting with our Jack brand, second quarter same store sales decreased 4.4% comprised of a franchise restaurant comp decrease of 4.5% and a company owned sales decrease of 4%. This result included a decrease in transactions and negative mix, partially offset by many price increases, which continued to moderate. As Lance mentioned, we continue to drive sales in our mobile and digital channels, which is essential in our efforts to increase active loyalty program membership and create personalized targeted promotions to this high value channel. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:07:31We are also excited by our kiosk implementation at both brands. Both the freestanding kiosks at Dell and the flip kiosks now active in nearly 1,500 deck locations as part of our new POS rollout. We feel great about our ability to achieve the target of 20% digital sales ahead of schedule. Turning to restaurant count. There were five restaurant openings and 12 restaurant closures in the quarter. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:08:00Jack is still expecting to open between thirty five to forty restaurants for fiscal twenty twenty five, including openings in Chicago. Jack's restaurant level margin percentage in the quarter decreased to 19.6%, down from 23.6% a year ago, driven primarily by lower sales, continued inflation for commodities, wages and utilities, as well as higher operating costs, partially offset by price increases and favorable beverage funding. More specifically, food and packaging costs as a percentage of sales declined 100 basis points from the prior year to 27.8% driven by an increase in beverage funding related to a new contract entered into last quarter and many price increases, partially offset by commodity inflation of 3.4% in the quarter. Labor costs as a percentage of sales were 33.8%, increasing three twenty basis points from the prior year. Wage inflation was 10.6% for the quarter and mainly due to wage increases to comply with California's minimum wage law, which lapped its one year mark on April 1. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:09:23Occupancy and other operating expenses increased 170 basis points driven primarily by higher rent, utilities and other operating expenses including third party delivery fees. Franchise level margin was $68,300,000 or 40% of franchise revenues compared to $71,700,000 or 40.4% a year ago. The decrease in dollars was mainly driven by lower franchise same store sales and the resulting decrease in royalty and rent revenue. Now turning to Del Taco. System same store sales declined 3.6% with a franchise sales decline of 4.2% and a company owned comp decrease of 1.7%. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:10:13The lower sales were the result of a decline in transactions, partially offset by an increase in price. As mentioned last quarter, 100% of our company owned restaurants have kiosks installed and we are continuing to see franchisees increasing their adoption rate as well. Including kiosks, along with third party delivery and mobile, digital mix now makes up over 18% of system wide sales. We are also seeing positive momentum from the menu optimization initiative, which launched system wide in the first half of Q1, driving improvements in both product mix and average check. Del Taco restaurant level margin was 12.8%, down 400 basis points from the prior year. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:11:04The decline was driven mainly by lower sales and commodity and wage inflation, partially offset by menu price increases. Food and packaging costs as a percentage of sales decreased 100 basis points to 24.6% due to favorable beverage funding, partially offset by commodity inflation of 5.7%. Labor costs as a percentage of sales increased three thirty basis points to 38.2% primarily due to wage inflation, which was 11.7% for the quarter mainly due to increases to comply with California's minimum wage law. Occupancy and other operating costs increased 160 basis points driven primarily by higher utility and maintenance and repair costs. Franchise level margin was 24.4% of franchise revenues compared to 28.9% last year. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:12:07The decrease in franchise level margin percentage was driven by refranchising and the associated impact of pass through rent, marketing and purchasing fees. Del Taco restaurant count at quarter end was five ninety one with six openings and four closures during the quarter. Moving on now to our consolidated results. SG and A for the quarter was $35,500,000 or 10.5% of revenues as compared to $37,500,000 or 10.3% a year ago. The decrease of $2,000,000 was primarily due to lower share based and incentive based compensation, partially offset by fluctuations in the cash surrender value of our company owned life insurance policies. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:12:59Excluding net COLI gains and losses as well as advertising costs, G and A was $26,200,000 or 2.2% of total system wide sales, down 4,400,000 versus the prior year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $66,500,000 down from $75,700,000 in the prior year due primarily to the impacts from Del Taco refranchising and sales deleverage and inflation experienced by both brands, partially offset by lower G and A. During the quarter, the company recorded non cash goodwill and intangible asset impairment of $203,200,000 for the Del Taco reporting unit. This charge resulted from the lower current performance and other assumption updates impacting our long term forecast and related cash flows. Due to the non cash goodwill and intangible asset impairment charge in the quarter, we reported a consolidated GAAP diluted loss per share for the second quarter of negative $7.47 compared to diluted earnings per share of $1.26 in the second quarter of the prior year. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:14:19Operating earnings per share, which includes adjustments for certain items, was $1.2 for the quarter versus $1.46 in the second quarter of the prior year. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 19.5 compared to 26.5% for the same quarter a year ago. The lower tax rate was primarily due to non deductible goodwill impairment and non deductible COLI losses. The adjusted tax rate used to calculate the non GAAP operating earnings per share this quarter was 24.8%. On the investing front, our capital expenditures were $21,500,000 for the quarter and included investments in our restaurant technology and digital initiatives as well as development of new company restaurants. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:15:14We did not repurchase any shares of stock during the quarter and as previously announced, we discontinued our dividend. As of quarter end, we had available borrowing capacity of $96,500,000 under our variable funding notes net of letters of credit issued. Our total debt outstanding at quarter end was $1,700,000,000 and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio was 5.5 times. Lastly, we'd like to reiterate that all guidance measures remain the same as provided on April 23 as part of the Jack on Track plan announcement. Thanks again for your time this afternoon. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:15:58Operator, please open the line for questions. Operator00:16:23Your first question comes from the line of Chris O'Cull with Stifel. Patrick JohnsonEquity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp00:16:30Thanks guys. This is Patrick on for Chris. Lance, wanted to ask you about the current trends at Jack relative to the down 4.4% you just ran in 2Q. And curious if you can provide any color around maybe where you exited the quarter. I know it was widely known in the industry February was soft and maybe how that held up as you moved into the third quarter. Patrick JohnsonEquity Research Associate at Stifel Financial Corp00:16:49And then as you look at the comp performance in the quarter, I was curious if there are any geographic differences that were notable particularly maybe in markets that over index with certain customer demographics? Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:17:02This is Lance. I'll start on that and I'll get some input from Ron as well. So starting with the third quarter, we're basically running in line with what we saw in the second quarter, which pretty well matches up with the guidance we've given. It remains a challenging industry environment. And as we've spoken to, we do continue to see some challenges. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:17:25They're a little bit self inflicted. Certainly, the consumer remains cautious. From other comments, I'll throw it over to Ryan here for a minute and let him jump in on anything I may have missed there. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:17:36I think you hit it right on the head. I think as we look moving forward, we're really going to be focused on our core strengths and equities as a brand. So you'll see us really focus on driving ticket through some munchie meal executions as well as driving innovation on our iconic curly fries next window and you'll see us pulse in a lot of core value to drive the value guest in to move forward. Operator00:18:10Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Silberman with Deutsche Bank. Lauren SilbermanDirector at Deutsche Bank00:18:17Thank you very much. My question is a little bit of a follow-up to the prior one. How much do you think of the comp pressure you're seeing right now is driven by company specific headwinds? You talked about the POS situation, but beyond that, is there a shortfall in the marketing strategy or approach to value given the industry is going to remain challenging? I guess, what are you doing differently in the back half that you didn't do in the first half of the year to reaccelerate comps? Lauren SilbermanDirector at Deutsche Bank00:18:42Thank you. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:18:44Thanks, Lauren. It's Lance. I'll start again and again turn it over to Ryan. Relative to company specific issues, I mean, we've mentioned some of the IT issues that we think are probably 1% to 2% in same store sales. We also over index on the low income consumers. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:19:01So I'm not sure. I'm not going to put a percentage on that. But certainly, we feel like that's probably hitting us a little harder than it is others. I don't know that I see anything that was a particular shortfall on the marketing side, but I'll let Ryan talk to what we're doing to get things accelerated in the second half of the year. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:19:18Yes. And I think if you looked in a year ago, we had some strong comps as we were rolling over the launch of Smash Jack. And so rolling over the execution of that is something we really have to focus on in the next few windows because we're really comping over the high mix of a premium burger. So that's where you'll see us really focus on that Munchie Meal and the trade up strategy with our key paying execution in the next window. Really does really well for us owning the late night, owning Munchie Meal and driving ticket. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:19:49We've seen boxed meals do really well in some of our competitors. And so we're going to lean into that equity. As mentioned before, really driving that the transaction side is focusing on our curly fries. And we have two new flavors coming out, first of its kind in the industry of Chili Crisp as well as barbecue chip flavored seasoned curly fries. These are our iconic seasoned fries. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:20:12Now we have new flavors, which should drive excitement for people to come in and just add on ticket, but also make that extra visit to try something new and innovative. And then on top of that, we are really focusing on that value guest saying, how do we look at our core offering and put out some strong core value to drive that guest in on an ongoing basis. Operator00:20:35Your next question comes from the line of Brian Mullen with Piper Sandler. Brian MullanDirector & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler Companies00:20:42Hey. Thank you. Just a question on on Del Taco. Understanding you're exploring strategic alternatives, can you just speak to the key priorities for that brand while that process is ongoing? And, Lance, with some fresh eyes on this brand, there are one or two things in particular where you see some opportunity that maybe can get addressed as this process unfolds? Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:21:05Yes. Thanks, Brian. That's a good question. I would tell you a couple of things relative to Del Taco. First, we've got to continue to execute operationally. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:21:16And Tom Rose, the Brand President over there, and his team are working on that. We also have been revamping our marketing some. And so you're going to see a little bit different tone coming out of our marketing as we move throughout the rest of the year. And then Tom and team have some kind of exciting menu additions. Don't think I'm gonna share those exactly right now, but some things are working on on the menu, kind of looking backwards to some things we may have done in the past that I think are going to be exciting for the brand. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:21:44So continue to drive marketing, bring out innovation and drive operations. Operator00:21:56Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Charles with TD Cowen. Andrew CharlesManaging Director at TD Cowen00:22:03Great. Thank you. It looks like there was a step up in the allowance for doubtful accounts. And I'm curious as you go through the upcoming store closure program, if there's risk for elevated bad debt expense that might hit the adjusted EBITDA. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:22:16Yeah. This is Dawn. The the step up is similar to the step up or the charge that you saw in q one. It's related to one specific franchise matter on the Del Taco side. I don't anticipate the closure program would accelerate or increase it in any way. Operator00:22:36Your next question comes from the line of Dennis Geiger with UBS. Dennis GeigerExecutive Director - Equity Research at UBS Group00:22:42Great. Thanks, guys. I wanted to circle back just on value, and you guys gave some good color on it. Anything more that you can say just kind of on where you think value is positioned right now, whether it's on Scores or value incidents? And then as we look ahead, I'm not sure how much more you can kind of add on some of the value plans that are coming. Dennis GeigerExecutive Director - Equity Research at UBS Group00:23:01But anything more to share at a high level on how you're thinking about where you should be positioned on value now relative to maybe where you have been given the environment and given the competitive set? Thank you. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:23:13Yes. I think you look at our value stores, value in our business is very important. I think it's trying to find that balance of what is the right value for the dollar. I think that value has changed though. I don't think it's all about low price. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:23:26It's about guests feeling satisfied is what they purchase. So even though I mentioned Munchie Meal, we're seeing in the industry where $9 and $10 is considered a value because it's food by the pound and it's valuable for the guests. And so as you see us really focused on an ownable equity of Munchie Meal, we think there is value in that as we move forward. You also, like as I mentioned, we will be looking at our core offering and say what are those right items that we can drive the lower value guest in at the right price point. We do think we have value on the menu. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:23:58We still have our amazing two tacos on the menu. We still have a lot of items under our Munchies Under Four, which we're leaning into. So we have that wide variety. It's just making sure that that message resonates and gets people to come into the store. Operator00:24:16Your next question comes from the line of Logan Ranch with RBC Capital Markets. Logan ReichAnalyst at RBC Capital Markets00:24:23Hey, good afternoon guys. Thanks for taking my question. I guess just in a few weeks following the rollout of the Jack on Track, I'm just curious what the conversations with franchisees have been like and and sort of how they're feeling about everything that's been going on. And then just separately, I was wondering if you can share how much price you guys have been rolling have rolling off for for the rest of the year. Thanks. Logan ReichAnalyst at RBC Capital Markets00:24:46Bye. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:24:48Logan. I'll start with the first part and I'll let Ron cover the price question there. But actually the conversations with franchisees have gone quite well. In my few months on board here, they have been tremendously supportive. When you think about specific to some of the Jack on track stuff, you know, they've generally been behind it. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:25:11And I think the reason for that is those guys are all in this for the long term. These are these are long term business owners that have been in the JAK system for a long time, want to be in the system a lot longer and turn them into generational businesses. And the changes we're making with JAK on track really are more made to drive the business going forward for the next you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years than necessarily what it's going to do next quarter. So overall, I've been extremely pleased with the feedback I've gotten from the franchisees, from the reception I've gotten from the franchisees, and frankly, from their support as we line up to do a lot of things that are gonna gonna change the business for the better. So I will turn it over to to Dawn actually and and let her talk about the price we see rolling off. Dawn HooperInterim Principal Financial Officer at Jack in the Box00:25:55Yeah. So in November, we had talked about our price being between 34%. The carryover is a little over 2%. Operator00:26:08Your next question comes from the line of Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley. Brian HarbourAnalyst at Morgan Stanley00:26:15Yes, thanks. Good afternoon. Lance, maybe to that point, where exactly are the closures going to be concentrated like geographically, I guess? And then is it a smaller number of franchisees or is it pretty broad? How do you have a different view of kind of new markets? Brian HarbourAnalyst at Morgan Stanley00:26:39Those still going to you've obviously signed a bunch of deals in new markets. Are those still going to proceed as planned? Are you still open to adding them during this time? How will that play out? Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:26:54All right, Brian. First of all, as it relates to the closure program, we're going to give a lot more detail in August as to exactly what that's going to look like. At a high level, it's going to be spread throughout the system. So there's not going to be know, what I would think to be a huge concentration in any one given area. I think as far as is it concentrated to a set number of franchisees, you know, we're gonna do our best to spread it actually among a fairly broad number of franchisees. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:27:26It is largely going to be driven on economics. Sometimes you're going to have a given franchisee who may have more closures than others. Certainly, that's going to be the case. But with that said, we are going to try to keep it pretty broad among the franchise base. And then finally, with regard to new markets, I do expect we'll continue to grow in new markets. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:27:48We think we've got a lot of white space. We think we've got a lot of ability to grow. I think the bigger change from my perspective would be we want it to be more franchisee led than corporate led. So we will continue to meet the obligations we've made as far as building a long term franchisees in some of these markets. We'll just take a little bit less active role and how many of those are actually restaurants that we own versus restaurants we'll be asking the franchisees to build. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:28:16But absolutely, we want to keep going on those new markets. Operator00:28:22Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Bernstein with Barclays. Jeffrey BernsteinAnalyst at Barclays Capital00:28:31Thank you very much. Lance, just hoping I could talk a little bit more about Del Taco. I know you mentioned a variety of strategic alternatives including possible divestiture. I'm just wondering what the other options would be. It would seem like if you're looking to simplify the portfolio, the divestiture would be, I guess, your preferred route. Jeffrey BernsteinAnalyst at Barclays Capital00:28:50But just curious to hear your thoughts there and whether you're pleased with any kind of early interest or how you think about the potential divestiture and timeframe for such? Thank you. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:29:05I think overall, you know, I can't I can't get too deep into Del Taco as you would as you would guess, at least the potential sales process. What I would tell you though is we we've had a lot of retail. We haven't even gone to official marketing yet on the thing. We're still, you know, directionally a few weeks out on that without going into a lot of depth, and we have had significant reach out and interest in the brand. So as you that's probably about as far as I can go on that when you think about other alternatives. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:29:35I think given given the early returns on on the interest we seem to be getting, I feel pretty solidly that that would be the the option we would go down. Operator00:29:52Your next question comes from the line of Jake Bartlett with Trist Securities. Jake BartlettSenior Equity Research Analyst at Truist Securities00:29:59Great. Thanks for taking the question. I'm going to just build on one of the earlier ones about new unit development. And I guess, Lance, your excitement and level of commitment to that strategy. Maybe if you could also just give us an update on how many restaurant commitments you have outstanding, how many development agreements is something that had been disclosed pretty regularly and I just want to see where progress is there. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:30:29Sure. So first of all on new units, I mean, are excited to continue growing first of all. I think the key with what we're doing on the Jack on Track stuff is really make sure we're set up with a good healthy franchise base that can grow from a position of strength. So while we are going to have some closures here coming down the road as you've seen from our announcements, I think where that's really going to net us is franchisees that are not dragging along some units, frankly, that probably need to close. It's going to free up dollars. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:31:07We expect some of those dollars to flow in the new unit builds. And then to piggyback on the new market question from a few minutes ago as well, we've got Chicago where we expect to convert around eight, I believe it is, by the end of the fiscal year. We've got builds happening in other markets, whether it's Louisville, Salt Lake City. We're getting ready to be opening some units in Florida. So there's a lot going on there too. Lance TuckerCEO at Jack in the Box00:31:34So I think from a new unit standpoint, the picture still looks good. We just got to get it through a few closures here before you'll start to see it in the net in the net numbers. As it relates to the to the development numbers, I don't have those in in front of me at the moment. So that'll be something we'll need to circle back on. Operator00:31:58Your final question comes from the line of Christine Cho with Goldman Sachs. Christine ChoAnalyst at Goldman Sachs00:32:04Thank you for taking the question. So would you be able to share some observations on the various sweetheart performances in the quarter? Are you seeing any particular pressure on breakfast or late night? And how are you seeing the market share progressing? Thank you. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:32:21No. We we when we look across daypart, I think we we've kinda seen a little bit, especially at the lunch and dinner time, but it's kind of been spread out evenly across. We had some success over the last this past window that we really are trying to build off where we actually quickly sold out of Nashville hot mozzarella sticks. We had a great partnership with Red Bull that moved really well. So we've had success at certain executions and add ons that we're really going to start building off moving forward. Ryan OstromChief Customer & Digital Officer at Jack in the Box00:32:52And our goal as we mentioned before is really focused on that barbell strategy with the balance of driving ticket with some of our core equities while also introducing some more value to drive trends. Chris BrandonVP - IR at Jack in the Box00:33:05And I'll just quickly chip in with I think you were looking for the development agreement or restaurant commitment number and it's since mid-twenty twenty one, which is kind of where we've kept the running total going. It's at $4.40. Operator00:33:29Ladies and gentlemen,Read moreParticipantsExecutivesChris BrandonVP - IRLance TuckerCEODawn HooperInterim Principal Financial OfficerRyan OstromChief Customer & Digital OfficerAnalystsPatrick JohnsonEquity Research Associate at Stifel Financial CorpLauren SilbermanDirector at Deutsche BankBrian MullanDirector & Senior Research Analyst at Piper Sandler CompaniesAndrew CharlesManaging Director at TD CowenDennis GeigerExecutive Director - Equity Research at UBS GroupLogan ReichAnalyst at RBC Capital MarketsBrian HarbourAnalyst at Morgan StanleyJeffrey BernsteinAnalyst at Barclays CapitalJake BartlettSenior Equity Research Analyst at Truist SecuritiesChristine ChoAnalyst at Goldman SachsPowered by