RBI Provides Update and Announces New Commitments

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TORONTO — Restaurant Brands International (RBI) released a company update, marking 100 days since COVID-19 disrupted North American markets.

The statement, signed by Jose Cil, CEO, RBI, detailed the company’s efforts to re-capture lost business through improvements to home-delivery channels, mobile order and pay and drive-thru experience. “Driving rapid digital innovation has been essential to our recovery path as a company. Our teams have re-written code for our apps; re-imagined service opportunities like curbside pickup; and expanded delivery services into thousands of new restaurants,” he shares. “The outcome has been a significant increase in digital sales in North America and we believe this trend shift to digital is what guests will continue to demand.”

As restrictions are loosened and North America moves toward recovery, locations across RBI’s brands have been re-opened. As of the week ending June 28, nearly all Burger King restaurants were open, with comparable sales now trending approximately flat to last year. In Canada, 90 per cent of Tim Hortons locations were open, with most of the remaining restaurants located in malls, food courts, sporting complexes and other public facilities that currently remain closed. Almost all Popeyes locations in the company’s home market are open for takeout and delivery — with dining rooms mostly closed.

As the company focuses on recovery, health and safety measures are being reinforced thorough training of team members and frequent reinforcement of operations procedures.

“While the leadership teams for our three restaurant brands have been laser-focused on the recovery of our business, we have made sure that a few, important long-term priorities didn’t get lost in the fog of business disruption,” says Cil’s statement. “We’re announcing our Restaurant Brands for Good framework. We identified major projects under the pillars of food, planet and people that we believe are foundational to our ability to grow globally loved restaurant brands. We know that as we emerge and return the business to growth, we have to keep focused on the long-term investments that are necessary to build the most loved restaurant brands in the world.”

The initiative involves long-term work with a focus on ingredients, reducing RBI’s environmental footprint, sourcing sustainably and investing in people and communities. All three of our restaurant brands are working to remove ingredients from artificial sources from menu items. And, the company is making progress on its packaging and recycling initiatives.

RBI has also made new commitments to diversity, committing to ensure at least half of all final-round candidates interviewing for roles with RBI’s four offices will be from groups that are demonstrably diverse, including race. “I am taking on this commitment, along with our leadership team, to ensure that this becomes a permanent diversity shift that permeates every corner of RBI.”

“Despite some areas of progress in becoming more diverse as an organization, we have reflected on our insufficient racial diversity at RBI. A week and a half ago, we stopped and joined together as a team to learn more about ways we could all serve as catalysts for change through allyship and advocacy. While our charitable foundations do important work with African American and Black communities in the U.S. and Canada, I will not diminish the fact that we do not have enough racially diverse voices and perspectives in our company and we’re going to change that,” says Cil.

The update also highlighted the company’s progress regarding its commitment to increasing gender diversity. Cil notes, “In 2019, we promoted more women than we had before and, half-way into 2020, we have already hired more female senior leaders into the company than previously. We have a lot more work to do, but when we make something a priority, we deliver on it.”

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