Shake Shack Inc. (SHAK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
March 7, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
John Ivankoe
analystWelcome to Shake Shack, who is I can see in their New York headquarters today. Welcome Randy Garutti, the company's Chief Executive Officer; Katie Fogertey, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Thank you for doing this. I know you guys are very busy and I very much appreciate the time. So hope all is well.
John Ivankoe
analystSo a question that I'm kind of asking everybody is just how the mood in the country is changing? I mean we -- Las Vegas is profoundly different March of '22 versus September of '21, the last time that we had this conference. There's a lot that kind of -- that feels with losing [ mask ], what have you, people kind of getting back together? I mean, it does seem like, especially post Omicron, there seems to be just a pickup of spirit for maybe customers and employees. And I just wanted to get a sense just in terms of are you seeing some of the green shoots like actually bearing fruit at this point in terms of a notable change and not necessarily sales behavior, but just overall attitudes that could potentially change into behavior?
Randall Garutti
executiveYes. Thanks, John, and thanks for everyone in the room. Sorry, we couldn't be with you today. We've got a busy week of travel happening in this -- in the March period. So we're happy to be with you here from our headquarters in New York. And I'll take that a bunch of directions. We're not going to talk about any guidance or sales info past the kind of mid-February numbers that we gave in our last call. You saw a lot of that vibe in the fourth quarter, and our numbers showed that. We showed that by region, especially in those urban centers that we've talked a lot about at Shake Shack that are more reliant on those good feelings that you talked about, John. You saw that then it fell off a cliff as we talked about in January, started to come back in February. I mean, what I can tell you is our own office here is filling up every day. We actually just finished an expansion of our office that we had put on pause 2 years ago this week. And now our team is going to be coming back. And our office will be mostly full, most days of the week. We just had lunch at a salad joint down the street, and it was packed. My subway was as busy as I've seen a commuter subway today in 2 years, my workout class this morning in New York City was more full. So you can -- we know that we are more heavily skewed at Shake Shack towards those dynamics. And I would name that as office commuting, some tourism events like conferences like the one we're on, and we need that stuff to keep coming back. The mood, I would say, is definitely continuing to -- and as the weather is warmed up this weekend here in New York, you feel it. It's obviously a little bit uncertain when we have to throw the crisis in Ukraine into that conversation because I do think that causes a lot of whipsaw you're seeing in the markets today and last week. Nobody knows and we certainly don't know what that's going to mean for consumer spending, gas, all these things. But I think in general, we feel like here we go, starting to feel like the right momentum again, like we felt in Q4 and we'll see. We got a long way to go to that being anything close to normal.
John Ivankoe
analystHave you ever talked about your business of like urban office versus urban residential? I would assume that there'll be a difference in kind of our performance. Just kind of thinking about what that percentage of sales was in '19, if we kind of think about, and urban residential is probably not bad, but the urban office is impacted. Like how much, I guess, recoverability, if you will? Like how big is that sliver of urban office that you think could actually potentially give you a nice tailwind for a couple of years?
Randall Garutti
executiveYes, I think -- John, that's exactly right. We've hinted at that over this last couple of years as we've talked about, but you have some neighborhoods such as Williamsburg in Brooklyn or a more urban neighborhood in Chicago or L.A. -- excuse me, that feels more suburban in the city that has obviously trended better than our hardest-hit urban core. The numbers in Manhattan while greatly improved in the fourth quarter, we're still down. We need a full recovery of things like Broadway, things like offices and events. So yes, it is no question some of our busiest Shacks ever are the most connected to all those urban travel office dynamics and remain still impacted. There's no question.
John Ivankoe
analystOkay. And is there a way to talk about what that like sales amount was? For example, I don't know if we want to take it all the way back to fiscal '19, considering the amount of stores that you've opened, if it's fair, but just to kind of look at the cohorts of urban residential, urban office, maybe tourism and residential? Or is that...
Randall Garutti
executiveWe have never broken that out, John. So it's hard to name that right now. I think it's pretty -- it's pretty common sense. So you can see Herald Square and the Theater District are kind of big, big Shacks that -- the Shack at New York, New York in Las Vegas, where you all are, until those things are fully rocking again in the way they used to, they will remain impacted. And -- but again, as we shared in the fourth quarter, they've also been the biggest part of our recovery in the fourth quarter.
Katherine Fogertey
executiveAnd some other texture to put on top of that. So we have reported that New York City, same-Shack sales were down 13% relative to 2019 in the last quarter. That includes Manhattan, that was down 21%. So certainly, in our urban markets, there are areas that are positive relative to 2019.
John Ivankoe
analystOkay. Understood. And as we think about, obviously, just the overall kind of return to previous patterns as a big tailwind for you. Let's talk about, I guess, some of the self-help, if you will, for fiscal '22. I mean what can you do and what are you doing to specifically bring people in that could potentially take you beyond just the overall foot traffic, which will be just beat the driver in and of itself?
Randall Garutti
executiveYes. John, our strategic plan remains really solid through this year. It's about elevating our people. And we've got to get fully staffed. We all know the challenge that, that represents in every industry, certainly in our industry, getting that set. Number two, continuing the digital transformation. We can talk a lot about that, but we continue to see incredible success in building more and more omnichannel guests, so people can get their Shack however they want. We'll be investing deeply in that this year. Third is our format evolution, really building a better Shack. And like we talked about, I'm sure we will talk about whether it's Shack Track, drive-thru, others, suburban and urban, we're growing our biggest class of Shacks ever and we're continuing to refine the Shacks that we have. And the last one is the guest experience. We've got to keep working on, every guest is having their own moments here, how do I come back in? Or how am I going to use that digital app? What is the pickup experience like? And you've seen that it's a lot of pivoting, a lot of growth and massive commitment to those 4 things, ultimately, to bring back and -- bring back our sales and keep getting back to growth.
John Ivankoe
analystSo that's -- it's an interesting point to pursue again in fiscal '22. I mean the most number of units that you've opened in a year, considering, I mean we still don't have a certain consumer environment. Clearly, staffing is difficult or delays. So juxtapose, I guess, accelerating development in such a challenging time, in other words, you're doing more, not less in such a hard environment.
Randall Garutti
executiveYes, we're going to build our largest class yet. We think it's 45 to 50 domestic company-operated Shacks and 20 to 25 internationally into our licensing business. So we expect the biggest class of Shacks we've had. Now we've hedged that a little bit in our last call, making sure people understand there's a lot of supply chain challenges with kitchen equipment and some staffing challenges that we'll have that -- or putting that towards the back end of the year and putting that a little bit in risk. But generally, we're really excited about it. We grow because we have such opportunity. We have just over 200 Shacks in the company-operated system of our company. We've got a long way to go and incredible real estate opportunities with the new formats that we're working on, especially with drive-thru, we should have up to 10 of those operating this year. We are about to open our fourth. We have 3 open now. We'll be opening our fourth in Orlando in the coming month or so. And we are going to seize this time to continue to grow and reach our potential. So it's not going to be easy. It's not easy to hire everywhere. It's not easy to get materials and get restaurants built. Everything is a little bit more expensive, and we all know this. But we're committed and excited about it. It's who we are, it's where we need to be, and we'll work on getting that done.
John Ivankoe
analystSo much to talk about. So firstly, talk about the experience of those 3 units. I mean you have 3 and probably, what, 3 months, I mean it's -- the experience is limited, but how happy are you, your customer? Do you think you have the right mousetrap, if you will, at this point? Where are we in the early stages?
Randall Garutti
executiveHowever, start with, we're thrilled. We can't wait to do more of them, and we got a ton to learn. And I've said, use these words that I want to be clear, we're really optimizing for learning right now. That means we're going to have some different designs, both how the kitchen works? How the drive-up lanes work? How we take orders? Every week, our teams are figuring out different ways to do it, different things that work or things we designed that we thought would work and they're working a little better this way or wow, we didn't expect that to work so well. So we are thrilled. We have very little drive-thru experience. Those who have done it well, have been doing it for 60, 70 years, and we got a lot to learn. I'm certain we've made a lot of mistakes, and we'll keep making them, but we built it in such a way where we can adjust, we can learn and we can grow it. Look, the early vibe is people are telling us there are moments in their Shack occasion where they'd like to drive through.
John Ivankoe
analystYes, where it's incremental, of course.
Randall Garutti
executiveAnd John, also just what's cool is that if you go to these restaurants, they're also filling up inside. And that's part of Shake Shack, right? And that's what we got to learn. We got to learn how many people want to use us drive-thru. How many people still want to come in and hang out and bring the dance team and bring your date or bring a fun family experience? And yet, some people drive through. I mean, I stood there in our opening day at Maple Grove. It was negative 9 degrees, I think.
John Ivankoe
analystWhat? Literally?
Randall Garutti
executiveAnd I see people drive up and say like, "All right, I get invited today, they're staying in the car."
John Ivankoe
analystYes. Of course, has that impacted your carryout business? Has it impacted your delivery business? I mean, was it -- are you seeing just like a true incremental big sales later?
Randall Garutti
executiveGreat questions. So far, we have not launched delivery at any of the drive-thrus. We fully expect we will in -- who knows what time frame. But our goal right now is just operation, just learning how this thing is going to work. We've -- we also do not offer our LTOs. So we've kept a really concise core menu. So this is about learning, it's about great quality, matched with convenient speed and a lot, a lot of lots to learn. So we'll see. We'll see. I'm certain it's going to be different. And then we're finally going to open in a warm-weather climate in Orlando and that will change everything because we're taking some orders outside, we're doing line busting. We've got these 2 lanes. It's beautiful. Here's what I will say, John. We -- everything we do for 20 years is to add a little something to the dialogue. And that's what we're hoping we can do. We hope you drive by or up or through and you look at that Shack and say, that's pretty cool. They did it again. And we are far from claiming victory on any of that, but we've got a lot of exciting things...
John Ivankoe
analystYou mentioned staffing. I mean, I'll talk about staffing with everybody. I mean where are you relative to the fourth quarter? I mean what do you think you can or should do to attract and retain more employees? Will the employee adjust or do you need to adjust them? What kind of changes other than just straight pay do you think you need to make?
Katherine Fogertey
executiveYes. So we have a huge commitment to our people and to really supporting the career path here at Shake Shack. And your question is very broad reaching here. I would say where it was hard to staff our Shacks, we are seeing a little bit of improvement, but it's still a challenging environment out there. Certainly, Omicron didn't really help a lot for the broader industry. But we are starting to see a little -- some green shoots here and there of where things are getting a little bit better. We are committed to paying our people. Our wages were up 13% last year and certainly kind of expect to have an increasing wage environment facing us for the foreseeable future. But people and -- are -- developing our teams are really at the core of all that we do and what makes Shake Shacks so special. And so you're not going to see us back away from our commitments to our people, even though it's hard right now.
John Ivankoe
analystI would even push that a little bit further, it's like -- can the commitment even increase? I mean, certainly, a large cohort of your hourly worker doesn't necessarily want to become a manager at Shake Shack. This is like that's just not what their plan is. So -- but -- and they have many choices, not just in restaurants but fulfillment, retail, what have you, that are fairly splashy with numbers of what people are being paid. I mean, when they're advertising that. So I guess how -- in the Shake Shack job, it's hard. I mean it's fun, but -- it's satisfying, but it's hard. It's like it's not for our body. So I guess what else -- we talked about the 13% increase in wages in fiscal '21. Is there anything else that you can do to say, "Hey, listen, this is why you choose Shake Shack versus other good employers?"
Katherine Fogertey
executiveYes, we are -- and there's a couple of things that we have in test right now, kind of around that front. We've discussed with you on a couple of occasions. We have tipping in test right now, not that we're making a commitment to go out with that broadly, but we are looking at different ways that we can help kind of address what you're talking about here. And we also continue to look at the job of our employees and identify ways that we can make it a little bit easier for them. But at the end of the day, restaurant work is hard work and it's why we remain committed to investing in our people.
Randall Garutti
executiveThere's so much more happening now and set more -- further set schedules for certain team members as much as we can do, really trying to make the life experience as great as it can possibly be. So whether you are going to work here just for a little while or you want to make a career here, we're double down on more leadership opportunities, more teaching, more classes, more -- we've created an entire school within our company now, something we've talked about before, called Shift Up, where our hourly team member shift managers can take a class that is on kind of basic business skill set, writing, speaking, basic financial acumen, the kind of stuff that can really help them graduate into a management role. We've also got our leadership retreat happening in the coming months where we're going to gather more than 1,000 of our team members from around the country. Every manager in the country is going to come together. And those are the commitments we're going to keep making. It doesn't make the job any easier as you said, but it certainly continues to position us as a strong employer of choice. And we're not done there. We'll keep doing more.
John Ivankoe
analystIn discussing the Shack of the future, I guess, how different could the business be in terms of how it's run and prep -- just overall food assembly, cooking, what have you? I mean, have you thought about ways of -- creative ways of, hey, there's something beyond just an evolution of Shake Shack of an actual redesign perhaps some of your future units beyond just service methods, including drive-thrus? And obviously, I now mean to lead into the digital part, with 75% of sales being in stores that have kiosks, either digital or kiosks that's a lot. And that maybe can change the way that a customer actually interacts with the brand?
Randall Garutti
executiveYes. I mean I'll take it broadly and let Katie jump in on the digital piece. I think you're going to continue to see the evolution of Shake Shack. We've had a revolution in the last 2 years. And how may we think about how many people -- not quite, but nearly half of the people in our ecosystem today, preorder in some form, right, show up. So when you get to kiosks, as you know, the 75% and all these other ways, they're part of our digital ecosystem. The goal is, though, that we do not ever abandon the community gathering place that has made Shake Shack what it is, it's how we built our restaurants, how we continue to design nearly all of our restaurants. So you're not going to see us, John, start changing -- radical changes to menu or the way we cook things or the way we do things. We're -- but we're always going to work to be more effective in what we do and to work on our cost structure. But we're always going to do that with an eye, the focus being sales, sales, sales, and driving strong sales with great premium products.
Katherine Fogertey
executiveTo add on there with on the digital side. A lot of what we're doing here, as Randy talked about, almost half of our orders are people ordering ahead of time, either through delivery or through coming to pick it up in the Shack. What we're trying to do is just make it more and more convenient for our guests to get their beloved Shake Shack and really take out any kind of pain points that they have in that guest journey. Certainly, the frequency data that we see from our digital guest gives us, we're encouraged to continue to invest and drive that forward. And that's part of our big step-up here in G&A investments in 2022.
John Ivankoe
analystSo a couple of things. So I'll do G&A first, and I'll come back to digital. I mean being approximately $1 billion of revenue in fiscal '22, do you have the scale at this point to invest in what you want to? I mean how are you prioritizing your G&A and your needs? And I mean, if you want to talk about it, I mean, what does -- I guess, your lack of scale just in terms of total revenue, does that put you in any competitive disadvantage relative to your peers today that you'll be able to raise over time?
Katherine Fogertey
executiveI don't think it's much more about -- I mean, certainly, it's hard. We can't do everything all at once that we would love to do. We have a pipeline of really strong ideas here and really solid business cases behind the investment. I don't think it's a competitive disadvantage that we don't have the scale that our competitors do. I actually think it makes us be much more disciplined with our investments and really kind of judge which ones are going to be the ones that are going to move the needle the most. So as an example, what we've talked about here, we're working towards, I call it, kind of a loyalty light program. We're not going all in investing in a huge loyalty engine. We're picking the component of loyalty that we believe have been the most effective, so for example, targeted offers. And we're setting the stage today to build towards that in the coming years. And we just believe that the more that we invest in building that digital ecosystem and connecting with our digital guests, the more we grow that omnichannel, the greater the frequency we're going to see from our guests overall. We're just going to give them more reasons to come and drive deeper relationships on that front.
Randall Garutti
executiveJohn, just adding to that, like it is an exciting way to think about the long-term future and everything Katie just said. Meaning like, yes, we can't do everything that companies who have $30 billion in sales can do on a digital time. We just can't. We're going to act appropriately at the sales levels that we're at. But we punch above our weight. We have since day 1 and everything about this brand. We're going to keep doing that. But that's what's so exciting to us as we continue to build this company. We look at long-term leverage of this company and the kind of things we continue to do, we're super excited for what that can and will look like in the coming years as we can keep investing more, and we can build out more of those tools that are critical to our growth...
Katherine Fogertey
executiveAnd one part of your question was how do we pick the project? How do we decide what we're going to invest in here? And really, it's an eye on what can really help drive our sales growth. Our long-term sales growth is not just about a 1 quarter. We're talking about a long-term digital transformation of this company and what we think that, that can do? And then there are opportunities where we're making investments where we can reduce costs. So those are kind of the 2 levers that tend to fall into where we decide to make investments.
John Ivankoe
analystLet's talk about both of those. Long-term digital -- a long-term digital opportunity, 42% is ordered digitally. Could you remind me what percentage of native to Shake Shack versus -- smiling a bit. I actually forget -- I forget it if you've ever...
Randall Garutti
executiveWe haven't broken that out and we don't intend to...
John Ivankoe
analystThat's usually why I say remind me which means tell me. Okay.
Katherine Fogertey
executiveYes.
John Ivankoe
analystSo okay. So some component of that is third party. So that's data that you don't have, it still comes into you digitally and some of that is native, which you absolutely have. So I guess talk about -- so that -- should that 42% become 75%? Will the growth come native to Shake Shack as opposed to that DoorDash or Uber Eats or Grub, for example?
Katherine Fogertey
executiveHow I would frame this is we are prioritizing our digital investments in driving guests into our digital channels. So that is our app, our web, and we are making investments to help drive kiosks into our digital ecosystem as well. So we believe that we can provide our guests with the most targeted unique, wonderful experience and they're in our omnichannel, whether they're ordering ahead of time on their app, whether they're ordering live at the kiosk and ultimately, they'll be able to kind of connect with their app on that side and redeem an offer, if they get that. And that's really kind of the business that we are most excited about here.
John Ivankoe
analystAnd what you do -- and what you do with that data to drive usage? Are you seeing significant frequency difference between those that are on the Shake Shack app and those that are not?
Katherine Fogertey
executiveWe do see a frequency difference, but we think we're still very early days in just scratching the surface of what we can really do here on digital. And so the investments that we're doing right now that are laying the groundwork of our digital strategy to come.
Randall Garutti
executiveAnd John, you see that very clearly in the -- we've said this before, just to name it. The omnichannel Shake Shack guests is obviously our most valuable guests. Those people who transact in various channels, which we know generally tend to come more, spend more and they have the highest lifetime value. That's what we're ultimately after as it gives you the choice. I use lots of Shake Shack channels, personally, I think, I am a of normal guest, but I prefer the Shack app for pickup, right? And that is -- that's just -- and Shake Shack knows that about me. They're going to send stuff to me in that regard. We're going to get smarter at that engine in the future as we look at these investments.
John Ivankoe
analystOkay. And certainly, you can reward someone to pick up different than delivery and you have all the options in front of you. So talk about the investments to reduce costs, could you elaborate on that comment?
Katherine Fogertey
executiveReally, it's across the board. I mean, we have cost reduction. There are strategies here within the home office, just within back office, things that we're investing in here to help automate, especially in the finance accounting and controllership side. So I mean that's -- it's pretty exciting stuff, John.
John Ivankoe
analystI don't know if you're being facetious or not. Is it exciting as a CFO or exciting broadly? Okay.
Katherine Fogertey
executiveI find it very exciting.
Randall Garutti
executiveBut then that's a critical infrastructure stuff that you just got to build that costs a lot of money at this size, and we'll pay a lot of dividends over time.
John Ivankoe
analystAnd not to pick on you, but I mean, you don't really see those efficiencies. I mean, I think you've guided -- in fact, I know you've guided to fiscal '22 G&A $108 million to $114 million, $13 million being SBC. So there is yet another step-up of '22 versus '21. Do some of those savings, by definition, come beyond the '22 guide?
Randall Garutti
executiveJohn, we are so young and any investor who wants us to leverage G&A today is not looking at the long-term growth opportunity. We just talked about how we're about to have our largest class of Shacks ever, and our biggest investments ever in digital new formats, all towards growing the long-term addressable market and capacity for this company over the long term. We're going to keep investing, and we're going to do it in a big way that allows us to hit that growth.
John Ivankoe
analystYou know I will take debate on a comment like investments to reduce costs. I mean, that's too compelling of a comment you have to let lie. Okay. So thinking about the TAM, and I think you get asked about this more or less every conference call. I mean, $450 million is kind of the official. But like how do you think about -- how do you benchmark yourself as a brand? I mean, it's like it's okay to say, well, if brand X can have a certain number of billion dollars of sales, and we believe that we can have that as well. I mean there's this different you can do top-down. You can do bottoms up, you can just do your experience in one market and apply it to another. I mean, how -- what are like the different -- without you giving a new number on this necessarily conference call, I mean, how should I think about the overall TAM of the U.S. company-operated brand?
Randall Garutti
executiveYes. We're -- I think we're halfway, they are formally a long time ago to stated goal. We haven't changed any of that. And for us, we're looking for Shacks that we're going to stand the test of time, and we're going to continue to grow those. We've done incredible work internationally, here in the domestic license business and in our company operated. We are proving out the newest models we've ever built. Those things are super exciting to us and have the opportunity to grow and increase our TAM over time. And we'll keep you posted if there's any official change on that. We still believe we have a long, long way to go. And Shake Shack relative to our peers has as stronger brand, if not stronger than restaurant companies with many, many thousands more restaurants [indiscernible]. And we only have a couple of hundred really operating in this country. That's an exciting thing to build from. That's what we're working on.
John Ivankoe
analystIt's interesting. I mean the many -- again, I'm not saying they're right and you're wrong or you're right they're wrong. It's just an observation. I mean, our talking about ghost kitchen -- ghost restaurants with almost no seating, drive-thru only, digital only. I mean, just smaller boxes that basically say, "Hey, the box site you built that has all this dining room seating is like you don't need that anymore." You just don't. It's not coming back. I mean QSR, like McDonald's, for example, relative to 1990, God only knows why their dining room business is down in traffic. They know. I mean, I don't? But there's a real change. Casual dining is the same and people are just eating in restaurants less even if they're consuming at restaurants or from restaurants more. So how do you kind of think about like how the box evolves while still being a community gathering place?
Randall Garutti
executiveI think human beings want to gather with other human beings. And I'm a believer that people will do that in restaurants, in offices, in lots of different places. And I think we're not going to get -- the last 2 years has obviously been life-changing for the earth. But my sense is and look around this weekend for anybody has a nice weather place, people want to hang out outside of their apartments and homes. That doesn't mean we're not going to capture the inside part, but I -- and that also doesn't mean that we wouldn't consider doing smaller types, right? We're adding more convenient features than ever. But we're doing it with an eye on continuing the community gathering place that built this company. And you expect us to continue to do that around the world. And we'll test other formats to capture every possible bit of market share we can in a given place.
John Ivankoe
analystThen you took advantage of some very favorable funding markets and became a very well-capitalized business, a lot of cash, you still do. I mean how is that cash perhaps changed how you thought about '22, '23, '24 development? Just -- not just in the U.S. overall investments, G&A spend, but are there other opportunities such as international maybe have some opportunities to get into some international sites that previously weren't available to you to maybe accelerate certain opportunities that are very long term?
Katherine Fogertey
executiveYes. I mean, we think that our #1 best use of cash right now is building out more Shacks in great locations as well as investing in our strategic future here as far as the digital transformation and our people. And that's really what we're committed to. It will be a really interesting year this year as we get deeper into existing markets with some of our new Shack adds, our new Shack openings, in particular, around the cost side that we touched on a little bit, but we do tend to see greater efficiencies on our cost of goods line when we start to bundle more Shacks together, and we're able to source labor from close by Shacks as well. So it's an important time, and I'm pretty encouraged by what we're seeing so far. You're probably going to see a lot more of investing in our own company though.
John Ivankoe
analystOkay. And that brings up an interesting point. I mean, even in the last week, I mean just kind of what's happening in commodity markets are scary to a lot of people. I mean, we start trying to think through certain disruptions we lose access to wheat, for example, we lose access to certain oils, the price of oil itself. I mean, I guess like how much -- how fixed are you in terms of your commodity basket? I mean, is it -- are you seeing anything just like very, very recently that we really need to the first time in our lives really pay attention to some pretty systemic disruptions possibly?
Katherine Fogertey
executiveYes. No update to the quarter. We feel really good about our relationships with our suppliers and how we have kind of navigated all those challenges in the supply chain thus far. But we are watching just like everybody else is and kind of -- we're trying to get ahead of we kind of get ahead of and plan accordingly. But certainly, there's a lot of volatility that we're seeing right now.
Randall Garutti
executiveAnd there's a number of things that we do. Fixed price on for short term, John, as you know, our biggest buy is beef, which we do not fix price on. That is a market that has been up a lot as you've seen and you know, and it's uncertain where it's headed. May go up from here. And we're not sure, and we will have to ride that wave as we go. Where we can, various things like chicken, fries. There are certain times where we do more of a bulk contract, but we -- generally the biggest things in our basket, we will have some fluctuation. It's something to keep an eye on. We don't know where this is headed. And we'll see. We'll see. It's going to be volatile for a little bit.
Katherine Fogertey
executiveAnd just to bring back the fact that we just rolled out pricing, another round of price increases across our menu. And that -- we're really encouraged by what we did in October. We're waiting to see kind of what happens here. But we do believe we're a brand with some pretty strong pricing power here. And as the commodity landscape unfolds, we'll act accordingly.
John Ivankoe
analystAnd the pricing comment was exactly what I was going to conclude with. The art and a sign to the pricing, you take pricing and you just see no change in consumer behavior whatsoever. Like I guess you would see it not in traffic, you'd probably see it in mix perhaps first. But I guess what -- I guess the confidence that you have that you have continued pricing power from here, I guess what would that be based on?
Randall Garutti
executiveWell, it's a couple of ways. I mean there's a lot -- million inputs and depending on how you want to think about it, pricing go a lot of different ways. We're getting smarter than ever using our data to understand pricing. But I do -- I also think that information will be clouded for a long time because we're still in the midst of various recovery dynamics that have now been doing with pricing. So it's going to be hard to link those things for a little while. We'll see. We'll get there. What we've always felt is the feedback we get are the likelihoods to return the scores that our guests give us. Price is generally not one of the things that we hear about so much. Look, there's always going to be certain areas. There are certain customers who might be more price-sensitive than others. But our story is to focus on the premium ingredients experience and the way our restaurants look, feel and the way our product taste, that separate us and allow us to charge more premium than your traditional fast food...
Katherine Fogertey
executiveAnd I'll put on top of that, our commitment is also to the digital transformation and just making it more convenient than it ever has been for people to get their Shake Shack.
John Ivankoe
analystExcellent. Thank you very much. That was a fast half an hour. We actually went over. Thank you so much for -- thank you so much for your time. Have a great week. Enjoy your travels.
Katherine Fogertey
executiveYes. Thank you.
John Ivankoe
analystTake care.
Randall Garutti
executiveTake care.
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