CEO Todd Penegor said on an earnings call Wednesday that Wendy’s will probably experience a “couple of weeks of challenging tightness that we’ll have to work through” before getting back to normal.
Penegor acknowledged that certain items will be removed from menus from “time to time” during the shortage.
“We do believe it is temporary, and we’re close with our big supply partners,” he added. “We have several of them on the fresh beef front, and we do believe we’ll work through this in short order.”
He also noted that while some restaurants aren’t displaying beef on their online menus, it doesn’t necessarily mean the restaurant is completely out of beef. Restaurants have the ability to customize their online menus and some have chosen not to display beef items to prevent dissatisfaction since supplies are low.
“It doesn’t mean you’re out of beef at the restaurant level, but you wouldn’t want to really disappoint a consumer if they looked in mobile order and said you had beef, and then they drove to the restaurant and you are out,” he said.
It’s “hard to quantify” the material impact the shortage might have on Wendy’s profits, Penegor added, because customers could be buying other menu items instead.
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