Olive Garden-owner Darden beats estimates for quarterly profit
June 20 - Darden Restaurants DRI.N beat market expectations for fourth-quarter profit on Thursday, as higher menu prices and lower wages more than offset rising costs of meat and cooking ingredients, sending its shares up 3% in premarket trading.
The Orlando, Florida-based company said menu prices were steadily pushed up to soften the blow of sticky inflation, while its high-end chains, Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, continued to attract a steady clientele.
The company reported adjusted profit of $2.65 per share in the quarter ended May 26, compared with analysts' average estimates of $2.61 per share, according to LSEG data.
Darden's total same-store sales were flat in the quarter, after falling 1% in the last quarter.
The company's total sales increased 6.8% to $2.96 billion in the current quarter, slightly below estimates of $2.97 billion.
Quarterly sales have dropped for restaurants and companies in the fast food industry such as McDonald's MCD.N, Yum Brands YUM.N and Starbucks SBUX.O as consumers become cautious about eating out.
Same-store sales, however, at LongHorn Steakhouse business rose 4% compared to 2.3% rise in the previous quarter.
As per Placer.ai data, customer trafficat Olive Garden restaurants rose 1.2% on average between March and May, whereas it jumped 5.2% at LongHorn Steakhouse for the same period.
The data projects annual adjusted profit to be in the range of $9.4 to $9.6 per share, compared with analysts' average estimate of $9.55 per share.
The company also forecast annual sales in the range of $11.8 billion to $11.9 billion, below analysts' estimates of $11.94 billion.
Reporting by Anuja Bharat Mistry in Bengaluru; Editing by Mohammed Safi Shamsi
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