The strong earnings come even as the company's franchisees — brands including Burger King,
"We're all fully aware of the continued macroeconomic pressures impacting our industry and our franchisees," said
Still, the company's restaurants offer "value for money" and continue to perform well despite pressures, he said.
In
The coffee and doughnut chain's cold beverage sales grew by 14 per cent compared with 2019, Cil said.
Cold beverages now make up more than 40 per cent of
Excluding the Iced Capp — a popular menu item for several years — the restaurant's cold beverage sales grew nearly 80 per cent amid strength in its cold brew coffee and Quenchers cold fruit beverages, Cil said.
"We saw a roughly two per cent contribution to our year-over-year same-store sales increase of 11 per cent coming from the Loaded platform," Cil said.
Traffic continued to bounce back from pandemic lows at the coffee and doughnut chain.
Sales at downtown locations were about five per cent below 2019 levels in the most recent quarter — an improvement compared with a roughly 40 per cent drop during the pandemic.
Yet the company is starting to move past comparing traffic with pre-pandemic levels.
"We're beginning to pay far less attention to mobility numbers,"
"It's about to be in 2023 and the reality is we all have new routines," he said. "Maybe you're going to the office three days a week or maybe you're working from home. We simply need to be there for people."
Cil added: "Mobility remains a challenge and we're not waiting for mobility to come back. It's not the crux of our plan."
Meanwhile, the shortage of labour in the restaurant industry continues to impact
The best thing Ottawa could do to help the restaurant and retail sectors would be to provide more flexibility for companies to access foreign labour to fill vacant positions, Fulton said.
"It's critical," he said. "We need more people."
Hiring foreign workers is currently "very bureaucratic and time intensive," Fulton said, adding that on average it takes almost a year to bring a worker to
Critics have suggested the restaurant and retail sectors could find the workers they're seeking if they offered higher wages.
But Fulton said even with higher wages, labour shortages continue to plague the industry.
"Everyone is paying well above minimum wage in most cases and you're competing for labour between retailers and restaurants and Amazon distribution centres and a number of industries," he said.
"When you're all offering a competitive wage and there's just not enough people available to work, then you need to look outside of your community."
On an adjusted basis,
Analysts on average had expected a profit of
This report by The Canadian Press was first published
Companies in this story: (TSX:QSR)
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