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Good morning. My name is Anna, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the conference call for Recipe Unlimited Corporation 2021 Second Quarter Results [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time.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 a 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 risks, uncertainties and assumptions and additional information on certain IFRS measures referred to in this call can be found in the Company's management and discussion and analysis, and annual information form available on SEDAR.I will now turn the meeting over to Frank Hennessey, Chief Executive Officer of Recipe Unlimited Corporation. Mr. Hennessey, you may begin your conference.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. Thank you again for joining today's conference call. On the call with me today, again, is Ken Grondin, our Chief Financial Officer. And we are once again presenting via webcast. So if you're following along, Ken and I will try to call out the slide numbers as we go.So actually turning to slide, Page 3. It's sometimes difficult to look back and talk about a quarter that ended over a month ago, which in the restaurant industry environment during COVID could seem like an eternity ago. However, as most of you are aware, the restrictions on restaurants in Q2 were severe. Of our total operating weeks in the quarter, 97% of those weeks were impacted due to government-mandated closures or restrictions. And importantly, for a company such as Recipe, where the majority of our businesses have dining rooms, 79% of dining weeks were eliminated due to the mandated closures. And also in Ontario, for the very warm month of May that we all experienced, we were not allowed to even open our patios.Slide 4. We showed this last quarter to kind of give you all assemblance of kind of how the restrictions were changing quarter-to-quarter. So that reflects the changes of openings and closings. Again, you see the dining closures in Q2. Again, where the most severe time period that we've yet experience. As we turn to the next slide, this really more depicts the time line of the major reopenings during the second quarter primarily in the 4 major markets that Recipe operates in: Ontario, Quebec, BC and Alberta. As the graph demonstrates, most of the reopenings did not occur until the last few weeks of the quarter, with our largest market of Ontario, not even reopening dining rooms until well into our Q3. However, since the restrictions have lifted, we have seen a strong and enthusiastic return of guests to our restaurants. And we believe this clearly demonstrates the strength and resilience of the industry and our brands and that we can recover from the effects of the pandemic when our restaurants are allowed to operate.Turning to Slide 6. Notwithstanding the operating restrictions, total System Sales in the second quarter were $561.8 million compared to $389.8 million in 2020, representing a year-over-year increase of 44%. And you will note that we're also showing 2019 as a comparable. Our EBITDA for the quarter increased 95% to $30.4 million compared to Q2 2020. And also, our margin rate improved significantly to 5.4%, up from 4% in Q2 2020, and up from 4.5% in Q1.On the next slide, one of the competitive advantages of the size of Recipe is our supply chain. The global recovery from COVID is disrupting supply chains around the world and increasing costs. Large restaurant chains in the U.S. are reporting short-term inflation rates between 4% and 10%. While we have not experienced those levels, we have seen increases. For the most part, our sourcing team has longer positions on some commodity items, which has allowed us to avoid some aggressive market upswings. We have also anticipated some inflation and have increased most of our menu prices at rates a little below actual inflation. This will give us room in the future if we need to take more price. We anticipate that the higher traffic counts and consumers' willingness to buy more will enable us to mitigate margin pressure.Our Retail segment was impacted in the second quarter by both higher sales and higher commodity prices. Retail sales were up more on some products than anticipated in Q2, and particularly on ribs. As a result, the retail team had to outsource some production and to source raw materials in the open market, all at higher costs. Our ability to timely pass through price increases takes longer to administer in retail versus restaurants as it involves the cooperation of grocers. We believe that margin levels will return to normal non-COVID run rates for the balance of the year.Turning to slide, Page 8. Our e-comm sales continue to build, representing 35% of total restaurant sales in the quarter. E-comm is being led by Swiss Chalet, where 49% of their sales were digital, followed by St-Hubert at 45% and Harvey's at 21%. At Swiss Chalet, since the launch of their newest app last November, mobile sales are up 31% versus Q2 2020. Part of the reason for the increase is the convenience that guests are receiving through curbside pickup, where we have instilled new metrics such as time-to-take, that enables this service to be seamless and fast for our guests. We expect to market this more aggressively come the winter months.And at this time, I'm going to turn it over to Ken to talk about our financial results.
Thank you, Frank, and good morning, everyone. I could ask everyone to turn to Slide #10. For the first part of the financial review, I will focus on Recipe 2021 second quarter consolidated results, and we'll finish with a summary of our segmented business performance as reported last night and posted on SEDAR.Total gross revenue for the second quarter of 2021 increased to $207.6 million from $140.4 million in the second quarter of 2020, and decreased from $311.9 million in the second quarter of 2019. Year-to-date, gross revenue decreased to $401.7 million in 2021 compared to $410.3 million in 2020, and $616.5 million in 2019. The increase in gross revenue for the quarter from 2020 was related to higher off-premise system sales in both our corporate and franchise restaurants, helping overcome 97% of our operating weeks being impacted by government-mandated restrictions. The decrease in gross revenue from 2019 was driven by the effects of the government-mandated related restaurant closures and restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.Operating EBITDA for the second quarter of 2021 was $30.4 million compared to $15.6 million in Q2 2020, and $56 million in 2019. Year-to-date 2021 operating EBITDA was $54.4 million compared to $36.3 million in 2020 and $106.1 million in 2019. Operating EBITDA increases compared to 2020 were driven by increased System Sales, lower franchise royalty subsidies, higher sublease recoveries as well as various cost-saving measures implemented by the company.Adjusted net earnings was $7 million in the quarter compared to $6.2 million in the prior year and $23.4 million in 2019. Year-to-date, adjusted net earnings was $10.8 million compared to $13.3 million in 2020 and $41.4 million in 2019. The increase of $800,000 in the quarter was driven by an increase in System Sales and increase in government subsidies, partially offset by an increase in variable costs as a result of higher system sales. The decrease of $2.5 million year-to-date in adjusted net earnings compared to 2020 was driven by lower system sales, particularly in Q1 2021 versus 2020.Adjusted diluted earnings per share increased to $0.12 in the second quarter compared to $0.11 in 2020 and $0.37 in 2019. Year-to-date, adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.19 compared to $0.24 in 2020 and $0.65 in 2019.Now turning to Slide 11. Turning to segmented results for the quarter and year-to-date. Total System Sales for our Restaurant segments continue to be impacted by the effects of the government-mandated restaurant closures and restrictions during the second quarter. System Sales for the Corporate Restaurant segment declined from $200.6 million in Q2 2019 to $40.6 million in Q2 2020, and then increased to $92.8 million in the second quarter of 2021. The increase of 128.6% from Q2 2020 reflects the strong consumer demand for our restaurant brands and higher off-premise sales. Year-to-date, Corporate Restaurant System Sales declined from $388.8 million in 2019 to $195.8 million in 2020, then to $167.4 million in 2021. The decrease year-to-date was driven by the effects of the government-mandated restaurant closures and other operating restrictions.Total contribution from Corporate Restaurants was $2.8 million for the second quarter of 2021 compared to a loss of $13.5 million in 2020 and a contribution of $20.5 million in 2019. Year-to-date, contribution from Corporate Restaurants was $6.7 million in 2021 compared to a loss of $13.9 million in 2020, and a contribution of $39 million in 2019. The increase of $16.3 million for the quarter and $20.6 million year-to-date in corporate restaurant contribution compared to 2020 reflects the cost-saving measures that were implemented by the company and the receipt of federal wage and rent subsidies and provincial property tax and utility subsidies.Total System Sales from Franchise Restaurants declined from $595.9 million in Q2 2019 to $266.2 million in Q2 2020, and increased to $381.7 million in Q2 2021. The increase from Q2 2020 was driven by higher off-premise system sales generated by franchise restaurants and reflects the strong consumer demand for our restaurant brands. Year-to-date System Sales from Franchise Restaurants declined from $1.177 billion in 2019 to $774.8 million in 2020 and $748.7 million in 2021. Similar to the Corporate Restaurant segment, our Franchise Restaurants also experienced year-over-year decreases related to the government-mandated restaurant closures and restrictions on a year-to-date basis. The overall decrease was partially offset by sales increases in off-premise takeout and delivery channels.Total contribution from Franchise Restaurants decreased from $26.9 million in Q2 2019 to $9.1 million in Q2 2020, an increase to $17.3 million in Q2 2021. The year-to-date contribution from franchise restaurants decreased from $52.4 million in 2019 to $31 million in 2020, and $33.3 million in 2021. Contribution from Franchise Restaurants as a percentage of franchise System Sales was 4.5% in Q2 2021 compared to 3.4% in Q2 2020 and 4.5% in Q2 2019. The increase in the franchise contribution rate from Q2 2020 reflects the impact of the Recipe COVID-19 royalty subsidy program, which came into effect on March 15, 2020, and ended on December 27, 2020.Now turning to Slide #12. Turning to the Retail and Catering segment. Retail sales reported within the Retail and Catering segment relate to the manufacture and distribution of fresh, frozen and nonperishable branded and private food label products. Catering sales relate to food and beverage sales from Recipe's catering divisions, operating under the Pickle Barrel, Rose Reisman Catering and Marigolds and Onions banners.System Sales from the Retail and Catering division in Q2 were $87.3 million compared to $83 million in Q2 2020, and $74.8 million in Q2 2019, representing an increase of $4.3 million or 5.2% compared to Q2 2020 and an increase of $12.5 million or 16.7% compared to Q2 2019. Year-to-date, System Sales from Retail and Catering division were $174.9 million in 2021 compared to $158.9 million in 2020 and $147.2 million in 2019, representing an increase of $16 million or 10.1% over 2020 and $27.7 million or 18.8% over 2019. The year-over-year sales growth demonstrates the strong consumer demand for Recipe branded retail offerings sold in grocery channels, partially offset by declines in the Catering segment due to COVID-19 restrictions.Contribution from the Retail and Catering division in Q2 2021 was $6.4 million compared to $14.8 million in Q2 2020, representing a decrease of $8.4 million. Year-to-date contribution was $14.4 million in 2021 compared to $22.6 million in 2020, representing a decrease of $8.2 million. The decreases in retail contribution were driven by changes in product sales mix, higher food input costs and lower federal wage subsidies, 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 has experienced strong growth in a number of categories. The fresh and frozen ribs category, in particular, has experienced higher-than-anticipated growth. The ribs category traditionally has lower gross margins than other grocery items, and the ribs margins have been challenged in 2021 because of higher protein input costs. Gross margin in the Retail segment are expected to normalize as certain input costs recover and selling prices to grocers are adjusted.Turning to the Central Operations segment. Central Operations segment sales consists of sales generated by Recipe's off-premise call center business, representing fees charged on delivery, call-ahead, web and mobile-based meal orders. Central Operations segment EBITDA consists of franchise fees, property and equipment rent and vendor volume rebates and is reduced by net central overhead costs, net of federal wage subsidies. Central contribution is also reduced by royalties paid to the Keg Royalty Income Fund.Central segment contribution before net royalty expense was $4.6 million in the second quarter of 2021 compared to $4.7 million in 2020 and $4.8 million in 2019. Compared to 2020, Q2's Central segment contribution decreased by $100,000. Year-to-date, Central segment contribution was $1.5 million in 2021 compared to a loss of $1 million in 2020, representing an increase of $2.5 million. The improvement year-to-date is related to the growth in off-premise fee revenues and the receipt of federal government wage subsidies.Turning to Slide #13. During the 26 weeks ended June 27, 2021, management successfully opened 11 new restaurants and closed and exited 25 locations. The company ended the quarter with 1,327 units compared to 1,341 restaurants at the end of 2020. Unlike others within the restaurant industry, Recipe's 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 our restaurants that are currently underperforming. For corporate restaurant locations that are -- that no longer fit the long-term strategic plan for the company, management is taking steps to exit these sites. For franchise locations that are underperforming, the company will work with 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. Since 2019, Recipe has opened 43 new locations and has closed 89 locations, all to strengthen our portfolio and to improve the quality of our sales, especially as we reopen and reengage with our new and long-term guests.Turning to Slide #14. With respect to total net debt, through prudent cash management in Q2, Recipe generated $17.2 million of free cash flow before growth CapEx and investments and maintained a stable net debt position while still continuing to provide economic support to our franchisees through the pandemic. At the end of 2019, Recipe had net debt of $439 million, and at the end of Q2 2021, Recipe's net debt before the Burger's Priest investment was $450 million, only increasing $11 million through the total COVID period, even after our investments in our brands, franchisees and COVID recovery efforts. The company will continue to prudently manage its cash flows and liquidity to protect the short-term and long-term health of Recipe, its brands and franchisees and to return to opportunistic and strategic growth.Now turning to Slide 15. This concludes the financial commentary of the call.I'll now turn the discussion back to Frank.
Thanks, Ken.Turning on Page 16. The global recovery from COVID, along with various support packages has created labor shortages in various sectors and geographical locations. Some of these labor shortages, particularly in smaller communities are impacting staffing levels at some restaurants in the industry. This is resulting in locations either closing on certain days of the week or not accepting walk-ins or closing permanently. While we have very few examples of restaurants closing certain days of the week, we do anticipate that the employment market will take time to recalibrate.As we mentioned on our last call, we believe that Recipe has strong employee branding. We took efforts throughout COVID to both engage our teams as well as to continue to compensate them while not working. We are pleased with our ability to retain many of our key frontline teammates in our corporate restaurants and believe we are better positioned than most. However, we do not know how long the shortage of labor will continue, and we are increasing our recruitment and hiring efforts, which may lead to higher training costs and lower productivity as new teams come up to speed.On Slide 17, our fourth Ultimate Kitchens opened in Hamilton in Q2. The brands being serviced out of this location are St- Hubert, Harvey's, New York Fries, Fresh and Burger's Priest. As I previously stated, each Ultimate Kitchens is an evolution of the previous location, and our latest model in Hamilton is our most efficient UK yet. We will continue our expansion and are actively seeking new locations to continue our growth.Slide 18. Our operational focus for the balance of the year is to focus on our basic 4 pillars and to remind guests what they've been missing. With the complexity of social distancing rules still in place as well as the disruptions we have discussed, we feel there is not a better time for our brands to go back to focusing on being brilliant at the basics. This is what they have been doing, and our guests are loving.And finally, on Slide 19. We are very proud to announce the release of our inaugural Consumer Social Responsibility report. One of our objectives is to become a CSR leader. To that end, next week, we will publish this report aligned with the key environmental, social and governance metrics for our industry and emphasizing our key pillars of people, food and planet. We are committed to furthering our CSR efforts, and specifically, we will be investing $5 million per year until 2025 on important initiatives, such as continuing to pilot energy and water reduction technologies in our kitchens, conducting waste management audits to inform our food rescue and recycling programs, and completing a greenhouse gas audit in target setting.We are also investing in our leadership development programs to increase representation of women and visible minorities and members of the LGBTQ2S+ communities to achieve leadership roles within our organization by 2023 through to 2025. And this is just a sample of the things that we are prioritizing. Our key value of doing the right thing will guide our actions as we believe this is the right thing to do for our people and our planet and is in line with Recipe's responsibilities as an industry leader.And with that, we'll turn it back to the operator to take any questions you may have.
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from George Doumet with Scotiabank.
I appreciate the 2019 comparison. So maybe on that note, on the recently opened restaurants in Ontario and Quebec, can you maybe compare where today's [ SUV ] sits relative to 2019? We're hearing at a global evidence that volumes are kind of 15% to 20% in some instances. So I just want to confirm that and confirm your thoughts there.
George, I'm going to ask you maybe just to clarify a little bit your question. So it's on -- you're talking about on new restaurants?
No, no, just the recently opened restaurants in Quebec and Ontario, just kind of wanting to see how they were faring relative to 2019 levels. We've been hearing some pretty big numbers being thrown around. So I just kind of wanted to hear your thoughts there.
Yes. I mean I won't get into specifics, but I think you've seen what's happened in the U.S. when markets have opened and some of the things that are being reported there. We're seeing very similar actions. I mean our restaurants are busy. We're not going to get into guidance. I think we're -- where we're -- we have sporadic labor shortages in some restaurants. And so I think like every other restaurant out there, sometimes you're not filling to your capacity, even if you could. But I think our guests are patient. And again, we're excited by the early response that we're seeing.
Okay. And in fact, what's the rationale behind the divestiture of Milestones? And are there maybe any other banners that kind of that you're looking to maybe divest at this point as well?
Well, we've been pretty open about talking about our portfolio and the fact that we're always looking to optimize it. I think our focus is we want to be in brands that either are large and dominant and generate lots of free cash flow or are young, more on point with today's consumer and have a long runway for new restaurant growth. And honestly, if there's -- if we have brands that maybe don't fit those particular segments then we may find a better home for them. But -- and I think when it came to Milestones, clearly, it was not a brand that we are intending to grow. And we thought for the best interest of not just Recipe, but also the team and the people at Milestones that sometimes having a better parent is good. So that was really the rationale.
Okay. And I know it's maybe a difficult question to answer, Frank. But do you think the industry has seen a worse of store closures? Or do you think it maybe gets worse on today's level, I guess, when the government aid ends, patio season's over, and obviously, the labor kind of constraints remain?
It's a good question, George. I think for us, I mean, we're -- again, we're very bullish about our position because of the actions that we took. So our franchise community is not sitting on a mountain of debt. But I do think that you have a lot of others that are out there that are 1 or few things. They're sitting on a lot of debt. They can be just riding out their leases to get to the end, and/or when the subsidies come off, they may not be as well positioned. So I just don't think we've really seen what the end here unfortunately looks like in the industry, but I am expecting more follow.
Okay. Got you. And just one quick one for me on the government aid. Over to Ken, do you guys expect to get any queues of sponsors or contribution at all in Q3? And any comments there?
Yes, George, it's Ken. Thanks. As you know, the wage subsidies are driven by revenue declines. So for us, ideally, we don't need it because our revenues are up. And again, we'll have to play that out. We're only effectively a month into Q3. So ideally, we're -- we don't have the revenue declines, and we don't need the wage subsidies.
Our next question comes from Monica Lutz with CIBC.
So just going back to the food process, and I know you talked about it in your prepared remarks, but the decline in the margins. I was just wondering if the outsourcing of those ribs have been resolved or if it's expected to maybe continue in Q3 and Q4, and you said there were some price increases to offset that. So when should we expect that to take effect fully?
We are expecting that it was sort of a bit of a quarter of an anomaly. We did have some kind of unanticipated shifts in mix and the fact that also the open market -- we've gone to the open market before. We're not always just booking out long in the future. But we -- typically, we've done that in the past, we haven't seen the swings in the market, which we're experiencing right now. And that's just due to the entire global supply chain kind of being disrupted. Sometimes when we do outsource, we know that outsourcing, there is a little bit extra cost. So there was a confluence of events that went on. It's probably not just one thing. But the team is working very hard at it, and we feel like they've got it back under control. And our grocers are working with us, they understand what's going on as well. They're experiencing the same things. So we feel good about where we're at, but it was a miss in the quarter, no doubt.
Understood. And then, I guess, just switching to the Ultimate Kitchens. How many were you thinking like in a long-term perspective or maybe on a per-year perspective of opening up, assuming that the economics keep working for them?
Yes. We anticipated that we'd open 10 this year. We're still trying to get to that numbers by finding the right sites and the right markets. We also think that there is probably a opportunity for this type of concept to go into nontraditional spaces. And I think in the U.S., you see things like this going into -- even into grocery stores or movie theater setups or on the highway. So there's lots of use for it. We're also -- something I don't really talk about, but we also are getting tremendous learnings on equipment efficiencies and a lot of our digital innovation is coming out of Ultimate Kitchens set, is actually feeding into the other brands. So we're getting a lot of lessons. It's -- encourage anybody that's in the Hamilton area or in the Carlow region, to stop by and take a look. It's really something to see. And hopefully, we -- when we can do more investor in-person presentations, we can maybe tour the site. But we have pretty ambitious plans for the concept, but just probably reluctant to get into any type of unit growth counts beyond this year.
And on the Milestones divestiture, I know in the press release you mentioned that it had a positive impact on EBITDA, but I just wanted to clarify if that's referring to their performance during the pandemic? And if so, maybe can you give some color on the EBITDA margin of that banner versus the overall company pre-pandemic?
Monica, it's Ken. Yes, we expect it to be a positive EBITDA impact because Milestones was, call it, under contributing and both pre pandemic and through the pandemic. We're not going to disclose the brand-specific contribution levels. We just don't do that. But overall, we do expect it to be a positive impact on EBITDA.
Okay. Great. And I guess just one last one for me. Can you maybe make the case for performance margins being higher coming out of the pandemic from the menu simplification, reassessment of costs and maybe some more rational behavior on pricing from the industry? Any thoughts on that?
Well, I mean, we -- regardless of COVID or not, we've taken an approach at Recipe in our large brands to try to avoid the discounting, the 2 for this, the 2 for that. And instead, do more bundling and kind of bundle your way to value. So basically having higher average checks, but where the guests receive more value. We think that's all better for margins. The other thing is that we have gotten very disciplined about and a little -- kind of the science side of doing this thing is all our channel economics. You can imagine that if you sell something through takeout versus dine-in or delivery, there are very different economics at play. And so you have to be kind of disciplined to know what you're trying to do and what you're trying to achieve to it to kind of make the formula work to get to the bottom line. And so all of the brands are very actively doing that and driving -- the marketing teams are driving the right incentives to get the outcomes that they want. So there's lots of stuff that's going on in there. But our focus on kind of back to the basics is really for our operations teams. There's a lot going on out there. Right now, guests are just happy to be out enjoying each other's company, socializing, and our menus, we think, are strong as just on their own. So giving great service, focusing on giving great food is really what we want our teams to be doing right now.
[Operator Instructions] And with that, your next question comes from Peter Sklar with BMO.
A question on the accounting in the Central segment. There's a line item in there. And I think I asked about this last quarter as well. It's called other revenues. And like this quarter, it was a loss of $2.4 million, which was a really big improvement versus the first quarter of a loss of $9.3 million. So what is going on there? That line item is really volatile and it very much improved quarter-over-quarter. Just that vendor rebates came in? Or what's going on there?
Yes. Peter, it's Ken. Yes, there's -- again, there's a lot of numbers that influence that line, including vendor rebates. What really turned around this quarter were sublease recoveries that we -- and reconciliations that we had with our franchisees. In this quarter that were recognized. So it's a bit of a -- so that's what drove it this quarter. But again, it does represent a combination of a number of amounts, both recoveries and expenses that flow through that line.
So what's a normalized level because like sublease recoveries, that would be a onetime item. Like how should we look at a normal level, assuming that there's no unusual activity going on?
Yes. Peter, very difficult to answer that right now. Normal. We're still coming out of COVID. So we're not normal probably until later this year. Normal probably resembles where we were in 2019.
Okay. My next question is, so you reported total EBITDA of $30 million. How much government subsidy is in that $30 million?
Yes. So it's disclosed in the MD&A, Peter, but about [ $427 million ] of total subsidies when you include wage subsidies, rent subsidies and provincial, property tax and utility credits.
Okay. And then lastly, like, I just want to ask the management team like, why are you in this catering business? It just -- like just when I listen to you, there's so many things to do with all the brands and the ghost kitchens and digital and off-premise. Like why are you in this catering business? It just doesn't make sense to me?
Yes. Peter, I'll take that one. As I said just a few minutes ago, we're continuing to look at our portfolio. And again, I'll reemphasize. What we want is we want to have large and dominant brands or are young brands that can grow and have a lot of new restaurant growth. We like the retail business. We think it's complementary to our restaurant space. And anything else, we are, I would say, actively looking at to see if there's a fit here, and if there's not, then -- and we can move it, we will look to do so.
Our next question comes from Sabahat Khan with RBC.
Just, I guess, maybe a longer-term question. As you look out coming out of the pandemic, where do you see a lot more of your store count growth coming from? Over the recent years, it seems like there's been smaller tuck-in acquisitions or new startup of new banners or things like State & Main. Just kind of where you look longer term, do you expect to maybe accelerate the unit count organically? Do you think you'll get back on the M&A half after the pandemic? Just some thoughts on that, please?
Yes. I think -- listen, I think we're always going to be a company that -- and just as our history has always shown that mergers and acquisitions and divestitures has been a part of Recipe forever. That's just the way the business has been. And I think that there are some -- we have some brands that have a real long runway of new restaurant growth. Whether it's our tequila brands, what we call our skill brands, which is in Keg and Blanco, we have Burger's Priest. We have Fresh, but also brands like Harvey's. Harvey's is very much a brand that's on fire. It is -- their comps have been double digit, and it's a brand that's really finding its voice and can have a long runway of growth. And our larger brands they'll have moderate new restaurant growth. But I think when you combine all of that, it can be significant. We've had -- and you've seen us do a lot of cleanup of a lot of locations that have, for whatever reason, over the last maybe 20, 25 years, just no longer work. And so we're cleaning that up. We're always looking to have the strongest portfolio of brands and restaurants within those brands that we possibly can. Recognizing as well that we want to be predominantly a franchise business, and when we are a franchise business, our -- one of our first and foremost thought has to be the franchisee and our partners make money. So we are always cognizant of those facts. That's why sometimes with larger brands, it's harder to kind of put more locations out there if you're just going to cannibalize others. But that's where the young brands that have this long runway of growth where that strategy kicks in. So that's sort of how we're approaching it. And if there's acquisitions to be had, we're continually looking at that as well.
Okay. And then, I guess, on the some of these smaller brands, is there any -- without getting into specifics on numbers, but is there any that really stand out as I look, this could become a material part of the business over the next few years? And then just on those comments on the Harvey's, are you able to maybe leverage this recent growth into maybe attracting some more franchise? Or are you seeing some interest there?
There's definite interest from franchisees and new franchisees and existing franchisees, which I think is more telling for Harvey's and for brands like Swiss Chalet and St-Hubert. I mean there's existing interest as well. So yes, I mean, I think, listen, I think the brands that you see that are new in our system, obviously, they're new in our system because we believe that they have a potential to be scaled and scaled quickly. So Burger's Priest, Fresh, Blanco, those types of brands, we think, can really grow.
Okay. And just last one for me. There's some commentary about the divestiture earlier, the Milestones. Is there still potentially other banners that you might be looking at that might make sense to sort of rationalize out of your portfolio at some point? Or are you sort of comfortable with what you have now?
Yes. I think I'm comfortable what I've previously stated on this subject. Again, we are committed to having the strongest portfolio that makes sense that we can grow our overall business. And we know that every brand has to serve a purpose, and if we determine that brands no longer kind of fit within our system, then we will potentially look to move those brands elsewhere.
There are no further questions at this time, Mr. Hennessey. You may proceed.
Okay. Well, thank you very much, everyone. I'm not sure what's going with Women's Golf Double game but I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and we'll see you again at the end of Q3. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.