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Good morning. My name is Kelsey and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the conference call for Recipe Unlimited Corporation 2022 first quarter results. [Operator Instructions]
Before turning the meeting over to management, please be advised that this call contains certain forward looking statements that are based on current expectations and are subject to number of uncertainties, risks, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Recipe to be materially different. Further information, identifying risk, and uncertainties and assumptions and additional information on certain non IFRS measures referred to in this call can be found in the company's management discussion and analysts annual information form available on SEDAR. I'll now turn the meeting over to Mr. Frank Hennessey, Chief Executive Officer of Recipe Unlimited Corporation. Mr. Hennessey, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, Kelsey. And good morning, everyone. Joining me on today's conference call is Ken Grondin, our Chief Financial Officer, and we are once again presenting via webcast. The first quarter of 2022 had 2 distinct contrasts. The first half of the quarter had the majority of our dining rooms closed starting on December 26, which cost us to lose sales from New Year's as the Omicron variant took hold. And we went into our fourth mandated shutdown of this pandemic. The closures impacted 61% of our total operating weeks in the quarter.
The second half of the quarter saw restrictions begin to ease and by March, most restrictions were lifted. As those restrictions lifted, we are excited to see guests return in abundance to our restaurants. This Sunday is Mother's Day. And for most of the country, this will be the first Mother's Day weekend since 2019, that restaurants have been open. We're expecting me extremely busy, and I know our teams are ready to treat our guests with the hospitality they should expect. Total system sales for the quarter was $721.4 million up 34% versus last year. And same restaurant sales was up 39% versus last year. You'll note that we are once again, reporting same restaurant sales and while closure variances were different this quarter versus last quarter, we're expecting them to be more of an apples to apples comparison as the year progresses. And we want you to have the full year of SRS reported. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was up $8.7 million or 36% and diluted EPS for the quarter was up $0.14 cents from last year.
As we go forward in the year, we will continue to focus on our key priorities. First is the return of sales and margins to pre pandemic levels. In achieving this priority, we want to ensure that we balance our unit economics so that our partners can cover their costs in this inflationary environment. While also ensuring that we provide our guests with good value for the experience. Our second objective is to achieve our new store opening plan to build 30 new locations, while also renovating an additional 40 more locations.
Our third objective is for further development of our hospitality first tech stack. And I'll speak more about that in a moment. Our final objective is to achieve our CSR targets for the year. The team is making great progress on all of our major categories of people, planet and food, and we're excited to share our progress in our 2021 report that will be released by the end of Summer.
Recipe has an exciting portfolio brands. As I've mentioned previously, we will continue to optimize our portfolio to have brands that generate significant cash flow and or brands that have an ability for new restaurant growth. We believe that Añejo, Blanco Cantina, Burger’s Priest, and Fresh are examples of young brands that can provide a long runway of new unit growth. In 2022, those brands will collectively add 15 more restaurants with plans to significantly ramp that collective number up in 2023 and beyond. However, we also believe that Harvey's New York Fries have significant opportunity to grow. Harvey's averaging of volumes have increased significantly since 2019. Their SRS was up 6% versus last year, but more importantly, their SRS was up 17% versus 2019. Those new sales provide the brand more opportunity to grow significantly domestically.
Meanwhile, our franchising team just returned from the Las Vegas multi-unit franchise show where they highlighted the New York Fries brand. New York Fries says some of the best gross margins in the restaurant industry, regardless of country. The excitement generated by participants of the Vegas show for the brand matched our own internal research on the ability of New York Fries to grow rapidly in the US. As such, we'll be opening 3 new training, New York prize locations in the US this year in anticipation of accelerated franchise growth. Recipe is a leader in restaurant technology in North America in large part. This is due to our combination of our own custom software development and our use of third-party products. What most people do not realize is that recipe has its own team of developers. It was in part due to our in-house developers, that we were able to quickly advance new features to our existing platforms, to meet the needs about guests and our operations teams during the pandemic. We have continued to build proprietary new technology, to improve guest service, especially convenience and speed, including our mobile scan pay and go system, which now allows you to pay your bill from your phone without waiting for the bill to come. Because we do a large part of this development in-house, it significantly reduces cost to our franchisees versus other SaaS models.
Our custom developed Jarvis application allows our managers to have everything they need to run their business all on their phone. This includes up to date social media comments, real time sales information, up to the main minute labor efficiency trackers and the multiple of other applications in the survey of franchise partners. The Jarvis application was the highest ranked service that recipe provides.
We will continue to invest in proprietary technology that will enable our partners, the ability to service their guests in an omnichannel environment and improve their operating controls. In the post pandemic world, being enabled to make these investments and bringing new tools to market with speed and lower costs. We believe provides us with a significant competitive advantage. I'm now going to turn over to Ken, give us a deeper review of our financial results.
Thank you, Frank and good morning, everyone. For the first part of the financial review, I will focus on Recipes Q1 2022 consolidated results. And I will finish with a summary of our segmented business performance as reported last night and posted on CDAR. My comments will focus on the variance between Q1 this year versus Q1 last year, total gross revenue for the first quarter of 2022 was $272.6 million compared to $194.1 million in the first quarter of 2021. The increase in gross revenue was primarily related to significantly higher sales in our corporate restaurants, higher franchise revenues due to the increase in franchise system sales and higher sales in our retail and grocery channels. System sales were impacted by fewer complete and partial dining room closures, which still affected 61.2% of our operating weeks in the first quarter of 2022, compared to 88.7% in the same quarter last year.
Adjusted EBITDA was $32.7 million in the quarter compared to $24 million in Q1 2021. The increase was driven by increased system sales, partially offset by lower government subsidies at an increase in food and restaurant labor costs.
For Q1 2022, the company generated net earnings of $21.1 million or diluted earnings per share of $0.36 compared to net earnings of $13 million or, or diluted earnings per share of $0.22 in 2021. The increase in net earnings and earnings per share was primarily driven by the increase in adjusted EBITDA, partially offset by a net increase in current and deferred income taxes on higher earnings.
Turning to segmented results for the quarter, total system sales from corporate restaurants increased from $83 million in the first quarter of 2021 to $141.2 million in 2022. The increase from 2021 was largely driven by higher dining room sales due to less dining room restrictions and higher e-commerce system sales in the corporate segment.
Total adjusted EBITDA from corporate restaurants was $15.6 million in the first quarter of 2022, compared to $3.9 million in 2021. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of corporate system sales was 11.1% in Q1 2022, compared to 4.8% in 2021. The $11.7 million increase in the quarter was driven by higher corporate restaurant sales partially offset by a corresponding increase in cost of sales and a decrease in government subsidies, as a result of higher revenues.
Total system sales from franchise restaurants increased from $367 million in Q1, 2021 to $489.8 million in 2022. The increase in 2021 was driven by fewer dining room restrictions compared to 2021 and continued growth in eCommerce system sales. Total adjusted EBITDA from franchise restaurants increased from $16 million in Q1 2021 to $22.9 million in 2022. The increase in adjusted EBITDA from Q1 2021 reflects the increase in system sales and higher net royalty rates. The increase in franchise adjusted EBITDA rate as a percentage of franchise system sales from 4.4% in 2021 to 4.7% in 2022 reflects a stronger franchise portfolio and less royalty assistance provided to franchisees. Turning to the retail and catering segment, retail sales reported within the retail and catering segment relate to the manufacturer and distribution of fresh frozen and non-perishable branded and private label food products. Catering sales relate to food and beverage sales from recipes, catering divisions operating under the Pickle Barrel and Marigolds and Onions banners. Sales from the retail and catering division in Q1 were $90.5 million compared to $87.6 million in 2021, representing an increase of $2.9 million or 3.3% due to increased sales to retail grocery customers. Adjusted EBITDA from the retail and catering division in Q1 was $5 million compared to $8 million in Q1 2021. The decrease in contribution was driven by higher retail food input costs without offsetting grocery price increases, partially offset by an increase in sales volumes. The company continues to execute its growth strategy in the retail segment, which includes growing its market share in a number of retail categories. During 2021, the company continued to experience sales growth and its retail segment, and it's gained over 50% market share in a number of categories, particularly the popularity of the frozen and fresh ribs category that experienced higher than anticipated growth.
The ribs category traditionally has lower gross margins than other grocery categories and rib margins have continued to be challenged in 2022 due to higher protein input costs. Price negotiations with grocery partners have been ongoing. Price adjustments were beginning to be deployed near the end of the quarter. Management anticipates that margins will return closer to historical averages as price adjustments continue through the partner network and global supply chains stabilize.
Turning to the central operation segment. Central operation segment sales consist of sales generated by recipes off premise call center business representing fees generated from delivery, call ahead, web and mobile based meal orders. Central operation segment adjusted EBITDA consists of franchise fees, property and equipment rent and vendor rebates reduced by net central overhead cost after federal wage subsidies and after royalties paid to the keg royalty income fund. Adjusted EBITDA from the central segment was a loss of $10.8 million in the quarter compared to a loss of $3.9 million in 2021. The decrease is due to lower government subsidies as a result of higher revenues, increased marketing costs and lower call center revenues due to the introduction of lower rates charged on web and mobile e-commerce orders starting in 2022.
During the 13 weeks ended March 27th, 2022, management successfully opened 2 new restaurants and exited 12 locations. The company ended the quarter with 1,251 restaurants. The rest of these restaurant closures were part of a pre COVID long term strategic plan where management identified locations that no longer fit the long-term plan for the company and or restaurants that were underperforming. For corporate restaurant locations that no longer fit the long-term strategic plan of the company, management is taking steps to exit these leases. For franchise locations that are underperforming, the company will work with the franchisees to help them achieve sustainable success, which may include the company providing financial support in the form of royalty relief or other financial assistance. Our portfolio plan for 2022 is to have net new unit growth for the full year, with most new units opening in the third and fourth quarters of this year.
Turning to total net debt, the company's net debt at the end of the quarter was $374.3 million an increase of $19.9 million from Q4 2021. And our available liquidity was $485.7 million. The increase in net debt was to fund seasonal increase in working capital due to significant gift card redemptions in Q1.
Last month, we successfully renewed our $550 million revolving term credit facility. The renewal extends the maturity date by 3 years, including a $150 million tranche that now matures on May 1st, 2025 and a $400 million tranche that now matures on May 3rd, 2027. The existing accordion feature of up to $250 million was also renewed. Notwithstanding the COVID 19 pandemic and the ongoing impact on the restaurant industry, our syndicated credit facility was renewed on substantially the same terms as the company's prior credit facility, which was established in May 2019. Based upon the current amount of revolver drawings, we have sufficient headroom, approximately $460 million without the accordion, on our existing credit facilities to fund our new restaurant growth plans, fund strategic acquisitions and make returns to our shareholders. This concludes the financial commentary of the call. I'll now turn the discussion back to Frank.
Thank you, Ken. The demand side of our business is returning strongly. The latest lifting of restrictions -- we are seeing some sales weeks that are surpassing 2019 levels. And while surveys indicate that between 10% to 15% of the public may still be hesitant to return to dining rooms or movie theaters, we are seeing that gap being made up with higher off premise sales than we experienced in 2019. Also the availability of labor appears to be slowly improving, but we are not relenting on our efforts to continually recruit and onboard new teammates. Recipe is participating and will continue to participate in the foreign worker program. To date, we have committed to about 500 people to join our team across the country to help offset our ranks.
Commodity inflation continues to be the biggest challenge facing both recipe and the overall economy. The war in Europe continues to put pressure on an already stressed global supply chain, but in particular food commodity prices recipe has a sophisticated supply chain system and team. Going into the fiscal year, we had anticipated food and labor cost increased by 10%, 15%.
We have adjusted menu pricing at restaurant level, and we have supply side pricing coverage on a majority of key center of the plate commodity items through Q3 of this year. On some other items, we have coverage through the end of the year. Due to the supply management system in this country, dairy and poultry pricing is dictated to by government. Dairy pricing has already been increased by the federal government by 8%. And we're expecting further price increases on poultry. We believe that where commodity markets are freely traded these high-level prices will begin to level off. However, we are not anticipating any significant reduction in commodity pricing until 2023.
On the retail side of the business, sales are continuing to increase, but margins in Q1 were disappointing. We have been and continue to be in active discussions with key grocery banners on pricing adjustments due to higher input cost, due to the fact that some of our competitors do listen in on these calls. I'm not going to go into detail on those discussions except to say that we have seen progress, but there is much more to do.
Finally, I want to touch on the topic of dividends. It is the strong desire the company to resume the payment of dividends as soon as possible. To be clear, the strength of our business and our balance sheet would support an immediate reintroduction of the dividend. However, in Q1, the company received COVID related government subsidies as a result of dining closures and other government mandated operating restrictions.
While we remain optimistic that we will not face further shutdowns due to the pandemic, which would cause us to collect further subsidies, current legislation is unclear with respect to how prior subsidies in the tax year will be treated in the event the company reintroduces the dividend, more specifically, it is possible that the company would be required to repay the subsidies received in Q1 in the event that we pay a dividend at any time during 2022. Therefore, we will continue to monitor the situation and we'll seek to resume the payment of dividends as soon as reasonably practical, based on government legislation. Now, with that, I'll turn it back to Kelsey to open the line for some questions.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from George Doumet from Scotiabank.
Frank, would you say that the franchisee for wall economics -- have they improved have stayed the same or have they gotten worse from the last time we spoke in March?
Well, they haven't gotten worse. I mean, we monitor it very, very closely. I think the pricing action that we've taken has done a good job of making sure that we're covering off some rising costs. I mean, we have probably more disruption for them has been just on our availability to get some products, which is again, things that everyone is facing. But also, I think George, particularly what we saw in March when everything opened up, the volume coming back as strong as we have seen, that certainly helps. I mean you get that top line going it can help make up for a lot of stuff. So I wouldn't say they're in worse situation -- I'd say that they're probably in a similar place as what they were and I think that's for the time that we're in, I think that's a good story.
Great. Thanks for that. And can you talk a little bit about your renovation plans? You called out 40 locations. Is that similar to a previous one? Is that banner focus? What incentives are, are you providing for franchisees to, to renovate and is that included in the $50 million CapEx that you guys previously cited?
Some of those renovations are obviously going to be franchise locations, so they don't hit our, our CapEx. They are kind of across the board on multiple brands. We do have a number of kegs that will be renovated this year. They are significant and I think will be meaningful on the top line as well. So yes, it's sort of across the board. As far as are we providing any incentive for franchisees? We are not. These are all have been planned and these aren't like to -- these are committed renovations.
Okay. And just maybe one last one for me, maybe for Ken, looks like the central segment X royalty payments is down $8 million year over year. I think you cited kind of higher marketing costs and lower rates. Can you maybe help us understand it? Is it one more than the other and how should we think of that contribution for the segment, I guess on a go forward basis? Is it going to be negative? Is it going to be slightly positive? So any color you can give on that, please?
Yes. George, thanks. Yes, a lot of moving parts in the central segment, as we said, our call center fees came down, not because of volume because we reduced the rates to franchisees to help with the economics on off-premise sales. So that's a longer term, more permanent adjustment. Our rebate model has not returned to, to where it was pre COVID because our sales volumes are not there. We also had some accelerated overhead costs and Q1 related to marketing and some central costs as we're gearing up to be fully open. So I think the reference point would still be 2019 for central you'll subject to that adjustment on the call center fees.
And your next question comes from Monica Lutz from CIBC Capital Markets.
So just to start, can you maybe talk a little bit about sales performance early in Q2? The industry data seems to have improved sharply in April and just wanted to see if you're seeing that same trend in your restaurants.
Yes. Monica, thank you. We try not to get too far ahead, but I think in this situation, it's okay to get some commentary on it. Just like I said in my prepared remarks, as restrictions lifted, we saw people really coming up. And we had very good volume that has certainly continued. We're again, we're expecting this Mother’s Day, week, we're expecting a massive week.
I think where we've seen some progress is in our urban locations. We've said throughout the pandemic, we're not overly exposed to downtown, to u urban centers, but we do have some big restaurants down there. And even in Toronto here, I think with the Raptors games and the lease back and people back at Scotiabank Center, it's been, it's been nice to see. And also and clearly we can tell that the office towers are -- people are starting to return down there, probably not to the levels they were in 2019. But so anyway, we've noticed we've noticed good pickup on sales in those restaurants. And yes, we're expecting as weather warms more people we're expecting to have a good summer.
Yep. That makes sense. Thank you for that. And then in terms of closures, they've averaged kind of about 60 per year, not just during the pandemic, but the couple years before that as well. And presumably that's not expected to occur every year -- and I know you said you're targeting net openings. So is it reasonable to think as you're working through the network optimization plan that you would see more elevated closures or the net openings is like a firm kind of goal moving forward?
Yes. I'll take a first stab this and this turn over to Ken. I mean our -- as Ken mentioned, our intention is to be net new restaurants this year. I mean we have -- a lot of the closures that you're talking about have you've seen, these were ones we talked about and planned back in really in 2019. So, and I think where you see where you could possibly see progress and strength is when you look at our franchise royalty rate at 4.7%, if you go back a couple of quarters that's been pretty consistent number there. I think that kind of dictates kind of the health in that sector.
So yes, we have, we have some locations that we'll continue to close and reopen, but those are mainly more for the fact that we just think there's better sites in that particular market node or the size of restaurant that we have, maybe there is a little on the larger side. We want to get to a better fit. And that will just be an ongoing thing. But from a net perspective, our intention is to have net positive openings from going forward.
Okay, great. And then in your outlook, you mentioned labor costs. Did you notice any negative impact to sales from labor shortages causing restaurants to maybe shorten operating hours or change their schedules? Anything like that?
We have not seen that. I mean, we've had sporadic situations like that. We have not seen anything material like that. I know our friends in the in colleagues in the US different just in their reporting. It seems to be a bigger issue in the states. I give our, our folks credit, they have -- it's not -- so they're not working long hours and they're constantly hiring. I think our training programs are pretty good that we can onboard people relatively quickly. But like I said, I mean, we're helping offset our ranks through the use of this foreign worker program and different banners, different parts of the country are using that to greater or lesser effects.
So overall, I mean, we know that -- one thing I would say is that we're looking on the supply side on both labor and food we are very cognizant of what is structural versus what's transitional. We do think labor costs minimum wage rates are not going to go South. They're only going to go forward. So we have to constantly be thinking ahead about how we can further add efficiencies into our unit economics while not impacting the hospitality to our guests. And that's just something that's going to be an ongoing thing that will continue to work on and probably forever.
Yes, that makes sense. And then just one more for me, if I can. Since you have a number of different brands under your portfolio with different price points and different consumers, have you seen any shift among consumers from one channel to another since the price increases have been more material this year versus prior years?
No, it's a good question. We have not seen that. I mean, we definitely have some banners where I would say guests have a solid foot in affordability. And typically when you see -- in past, when we've seen much higher grocery prices, that has benefited some of those brands. So again, it is something that we are monitoring. I would say that the thing that's a little different this time around is as everybody's taking as everyone is taking prices, is that the tide is rising equally across the board. Everyone is moving on price. I don't think -- that's probably not good overall from a macro point of view in the economy on inflation. We've certainly seen that, but it seems to be having less of an impact on elasticity of traffic than perhaps we would've seen this in a few years ago. Not saying that it we're not saying that we're immune to it, but it seems to be less of an impact than it?s been in the past.
And your next question comes from Peter Sklar from BMO Capital Markets.
It's Emily for Peter. So I'm not sure if we are just remembering incorrectly, but we thought that in Q4, you mentioned that net new restaurants for 2022 would be 40 units. And today that number is now 30 units. And we're just wondering if anything's changed or correct us if we're wrong.
Emily, I let's go back and look, but we have had some that have slipped into 23 and that's really just due to the availability of contractors. And it's nothing that the sites are not right or growth. It's really more from our ability to get all our contractors aligned and get restaurants open, but I'd have to go back and check it.
Yes. And Emily, if Ken, I just want to clarify the that 30 number of new restaurants is gross, new restaurants. It's not net new. Okay. We still expect to have net positive unit growth in 2022, but the 30 is gross new restaurants.
Okay. That's helpful. So just sticking on the new restaurants. On page 6, you provided the growth opportunities and then name those 6 banners, like Blanco, New York Fries and fresh. Do you know of the 30 new restaurants are they going to be easily spread amongst these banners or are there emphasis on one and the other. And also on Harvey, geographically, where are you seeing the white space that you're mentioning for these opportunities?
Yes, so I would say that the brands that we put on the slide, your examples of some brands that we think have a multiyear long runway for growth, but we have new restaurants popping up in all of our brands, including Harvey's.
And Harvey's has had a lot of success in Quebec over the past couple of years. And in part of that's due to our relationship with St. Hubert there. I probably get this number wrong and I listed it in our MDA, but I think we have about 50 locations in Quebec roughly. At one point the brand had closer to a hundred locations in Quebec. And so when we look at, in particular, the restaurants we have there, their AUBs have been very, very good. So we think there's a lot of room to grow there. There's still a lot of infill opportunities within Ontario.
So I think even if you take those 2 kind of core markets, there's still a lot of upside for Harvey's on new unit growth. And I know the brand definitely has more interest to develop in Western Canada. So again, we're -- I think the team there has done an exceptional job. I think their marketing is much better. They're a lot less reliant on discounting, which kind of plagues the burger category in many instances. And they do it based on just smart, great quality products and also opening up more late night opportunities.
Thanks. That's helpful. Now moving to the retail sales segment. Ken and his remark says that the volumes have been increasing and we were just wondering do you think the consumer views your rate of products as products potentially for trade down? For example, you know they might buy less fresh and move to frozen and as a result your line of products may have an increase due to this trade down effect. Have you seen that and how do you feel your products are positioned in the grocery aisles?
So I'm not sure I've followed the question, but most of our products -- so our big sellers, Ribs and Popeyes for one, the majority of those products are in the fresh section. They're not frozen. So that is really where, if you break down those categories, that really is where the growth is in the -- what they call HMR sections -- the grocery in the fresh area. So we're very well positioned there.
We have both Senor Bear, Swiss Chalet and Montana’s that all operate in those categories at different price points and geographically, how we break that product out. Montana obviously sells really well in Western Canada, Senor Bear obviously sells really good in Quebec and Swiss LA does well in Ontario. So we are really pretty good about the, for lack of better term, a planogram of our retail setup.
I think there's a couple challenges we've talked about in the past, is sometimes there's a good challenges to have where sales are going up, but it's that popularity of some of those higher protein items that have lower margin than some of our non-protein items. And that shift is, is impacting our margins. But also it's just fact that we're in a higher cost environment. And as I said, in my prepared remarks, we are continuing ongoing discussions with grocery banners to appropriately price our products for the situation we're in today.
[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from John Vincent from RBC Capital Markets.
Just a quick question on the supplier walk-ins you mentioned, you mentioned you had some going through Q3. Just wondering if you plan to do any of those through a later date, or if you're having discussions with suppliers, how have those been going? And any thoughts on that?
I'm sorry. I missed the first part of that. Can you cut it?
Oh, I think John, you're asking about whether our contracted volumes and prices with suppliers status of those through the rest of 2022.
Yes. As well if you plan to do more of those.
Yes. I mean, we constantly look at those markets and where we can take the position, the contract position. We, again, I would say that we have very sophisticated supply chain team and system and whether it's oil contracts or rib buys that we get out on. So yes, we look at all of that. We're paying particular attention to beef at the moment. So that's not, that's not necessarily something new, we've always kind of done that. But it's more of a question of balancing where the markets are going versus where inventory positions are going to be.
Got it. And then just a quick question on the banners, did you have a view on which ones might fare better in a recession where you say some are more prone to like a deceleration economic activity than others?
Well, I mean, obviously, in those types of markets I wouldn't say that we're seeing that on the restaurant side today, but in those types of markets, historically, the banners that are on the lower end of the check average range tend to do well. And again, this is comparing it to not necessarily our high end -- our higher tech average restaurants, but also to grocery. I mean in many cases we have seen in the past where it becomes less expensive to eat in a restaurant than it does to go up and buy groceries. And so again, brands like Montana’s and Swiss Chalet and Senor Bear, they typically do very, very well in this environment.
Got it. And then last one for me. We're, broadly speaking, we're expecting rate increases going forward. I was wondering if you expect that might impact new or existing franchisees ability to open restaurants. I guess more specifically on the restaurant growth through targeting -- are those targeted of franchisees that you would say are, are well capitalized, or are they sensitive to financing availability?
We have we have very -- well I can ask Ken to maybe comment more about that -- but through our rec process, and when we're looking at new locations and things like that, looking at franchisees, our requirements on their capital and what they need to put down, we ensure that they have both the means to be able to easily afford the operation and we can be confident of their ability to not just build the restaurant, but have the working capital required to operate the restaurant until they can get up to the full sales level.
Yes. It’s Ken. I'll add to that we've got lending programs for our franchisees established with most of the tier one banks in Canada. So those programs are well priced. Everyone's going to be tested interest rates, but as Frank says, we already monitor and structure these both renovations and new stores for franchisees, so they've got capacity to handle any fluctuation.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time, Mr. Hennessey, you may proceed with your conference.
Okay. Well, thank you everyone. I'd like to wish all mothers out there are very happy Mother’s Day this Sunday. Also I've remind everyone that recipes AGM would be taking place virtually this Monday, May 9th at 3:00 PM. So thank you everyone. And we'll see you on the AGM or at our next quarterly call. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you very much for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day.