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Shake Shack (NYSE:SHAK) is looking to take advantage of a chicken sandwich void on Sundays with Chick-Fil-A closed all day. The fast-food chain is running a promotion for free fried chicken sandwiches for customers who place a minimum order of $10 on the app or at an in-store kiosk. A Shake Shack blog post announcing the promotion was titled “Eat more antibiotic-free chicken,” which is a close spin on Chick-fil-A’s well-known “Eat Mor Chikin” advertising featuring cows.
New York-based Shake Shack (SHAK) is also highlighting that its chicken sandwiches are antibiotic-free, which it noted is “something not everyone can say these days.” Chick-fil-A recently announced that it would switch its antibiotic-free policy to a policy of using chicken that did not have any antibiotics important to human medicine.
Shack Shack (SHAK) is coming off a strong Q4, with sales growing nearly 20% year-over-year, supported by the opening of 15 domestic company-operated Shacks and positive traffic trends. “Our sales outperformed historical seasonality throughout the whole quarter and all of our regions saw sequential traffic improvement since the third quarter,” noted CFO Katie Fogerty on the quarter. Same-shack sales were up 2.8% from a year ago during the quarter, which was enough to top the consensus expectation of +2%. On the expense side of the ledger, food and paper costs fell to 29.1% of sales from 29.5% a year ago, and labor costs fell to 28.5% of sales vs. 28.9% a year ago. Occupancy and related expenses fell back to 7.7% of sales from 7.9%. Total expenses were 100.5% of sales in Q4 vs. 102.6% a year ago. Shack-level operating profit was $54.6M, or 19.8% of Shack sales vs. 19.0% a year ago. Looking ahead, Shake Shack (SHAK) is due to report Q4 earnings sometime during the first week of May.
Shares of Shake Shack (SHAK) are the 5th leading gainer in the restaurant sector in 2024, with a gain of 36.6%. The stock is up more than 80% over the last 52 weeks.