Who is winning the chicken wars?

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features a discussion on recent earnings with RB Executive Editor Lisa Jennings.

A huge number of earnings have come in and many of them are head-scratchers. While a lot of chains have done really well, like Wingstop and its 22% same-store sales number, others have not, such as KFC and its sales decline.

We discuss that issue, and what the first quarter means for the chicken market in general, including Popeyes and Chick-fil-A.

We also contrast the performance of Chipotle and Starbucks, and why one chain can do well despite concerns about prices, while another cannot.

We’re talking earnings on A Deeper Dive so please check it out.

What’s coming to this year’s National Restaurant Association Show? More seats, for one thing.

This special episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Tom Cindric, the president of exhibitions for Informa Connect Foodservice, which operates the show and is also a sister company of Restaurant Business.

We will be attending the Show this year, and will do a few podcasts from the event, which runs from May 18 through May 21. But we wanted to talk with Cindric to get a better idea of what to look for.

Cindric expects a big event this year, which may or may not be indicative of the state of the industry right now: People are looking for solutions to the operating issues they’re dealing with.

We talk about technology, which is a huge focus of the show, as is equipment. We talk about menu issues and changes at this year’s event, including more benches for people tired of walking.

We’re talking about the National Restaurant Association Show on A Deeper Dive so check it out.

Convenience stores are upping their food game and one concept is taking advantage of it.

This week’s episode of the Restaurant Business podcast A Deeper Dive features Jim Norberg, the CEO of the convenience-store chicken concept Krispy Krunchy Chicken.

We had Jim on largely because convenience stores are getting a lot of foodservice business right now. Traffic at convenience stores is up 17% since before the pandemic, compared with 5% at quick-service restaurants—meaning that some of the lost traffic at restaurants is heading to the local gas station.

One reason is the higher quality food c-stores are putting out now. Krispy Krunchy is taking advantage of that.

Norberg is a former executive with McDonald’s, and he is bringing a restaurant mentality to the concept. The brand is getting into third-party delivery and recently hired its first chief marketing officer in Alice Crowder.

We talk with Jim about the company’s rapid growth and how many locations it expects to go into this year alone. We talk about how that program works and what’s driving interest in c-stores.

We also talk about Krispy Krunchy’s new marketing program and how it can market a concept located in other businesses.

We’re talking convenience-store chicken on A Deeper Dive, so please check it out.