Praising the favorite child... Restaurant Brands International is a Canadian holding company, and also the parent of Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Hortons. But RBI was especially proud of Popeyes, which outshined its siblings this year with a surge in sales.
RBI is latching onto trend foods... Popeyes Chicken Sandwich, like the Baby Yoda of food, was a huge win for RBI. Last quarter, the Impossible Whopper drove Burger King US sales up 5%. But trend foods aren't always successful — Tim Horton's Beyond Breakfast sandwich was killed off after less than a year.
Profit-wise, RBI could do more... It's underperforming compared to Yum Brands, the owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. Yum is the Lyft to RBI's Uber — both own 3 huge fast-food chains. And they both had about $5.5B in sales last year — but Yum made almost 2X the profit. RBI needs to boost sales and/or lower costs to super size its profits to Yum's levels.