Eddi-Bites

McMinnville Farmers Market

2009-06-19T15:23:00.000+08:00

Six Flags in Trouble

2009-06-14T00:32:00.001+08:00

Eddi-bites feels for all food vendors affected....

Six Flags Files for Bankruptcy as Visitors to Parks Dwindle

By Steven Church and Dan Hart

June 13 (Bloomberg) -- Six Flags Inc., the owner of 20 theme parks, sought bankruptcy protection 3 1/2 years after Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder become chairman and hired new managers in an attempt to return it to profitability.

The New York-based company, which said in a statement that it had debt of $2.4 billion, filed a Chapter 11 petition today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

Snyder began a shakeup of Six Flags in late 2005 after winning three seats on the board. The 48-year-old company hasn’t posted an annual profit since 1998 and posted losses of $558.8 million in the two years after Snyder became chairman.

Six Flags shares have fallen 86 percent in the past 12 months as investors have grown skeptical about the company’s ability to refinance preferred income equity redeemable shares, or PIERS, before their August redemption date.

The company is seeking court approval of a prearranged reorganization plan that will cut its debt by about $1.8 billion and eliminate more than $300 million worth of preferred stock obligations, Six Flags said in a statement.

The debt-for-equity exchange offers have ended since the company filed for bankruptcy, Six Flags said in the statement.

Six Flags had $79.4 million in cash and $2.31 billion in long-term debt as of March 31, according to its first-quarter financial statement.

Spokeswoman Sandra Daniels didn’t immediately respond to a voice mail left by Bloomberg News seeking comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Church in Wilmington, Delaware, at schurch3@bloomberg.net; Dan Hart in Washington at dahart@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 13, 2009 11:42 EDT

FATHER’S DAY AT BISTRO MAISON, McMinnville OR

2009-06-12T11:16:00.006+08:00

On the third sunday in june,

fathers all across the united states are given presents,

treated to delicious meals with family and made to feel special.

If you are still searching for that very special gift,

take the fathers and/or special gentlemen in your life to bistro maison.

And don’t forget a toast for dad.

A kir royale (or sparkling cider) will be poured for him,

so all can raise their glass to these special men in our lives.

FATHER’S DAY AT BISTRO MAISON

sunday, june 21, 2009

12noon to 8pm

Chef Jean-Jacques’ special father’s day menu

will be served from late morning to early evening.

in addition, our standard menu will be offered all day

quiche du jour : wild mushroom/tillamook cheddar cheese

soupe du jour: shrimp bisque/chive crème fraîche

salade maison: weppler salad greens/warm bacon/ toasted almonds/

local strawberries/raspberry walnut oil vinaigrette

belle pente chardonnay, yamhill carlton 06

LA JARRE BRAISE DU PORC

braised carlton farms very large pork shank

roasted root vegetables/ white truffle mashed potato

redman pinot noir, oregon 06

STRAWBERRY PROFITEROLES

homemade puff pastry stuffed with homemade strawberry ice cream

warm strawberry and honey com

pote

silvan ridge semi sparkling muscat

prix fixe $32.00

with recommended wine selections $50.00

for the kids

3 course menu with fondue, steak, french fries, & ice cream sundae

fun room with an arts and craft workshop to make fa

ther’s day cards
$16.00 per child

*AS WELL,OUR STANDARD MENU WILL BE OFFERED ALL DAY*

Deborah Chatelard
bistro maison

729 ne third street

mcminnville, or 97128
503-474-1888 f: 503-43

5-2228

www.bistromaison.com

Starbucks gives customers a double

2009-06-11T02:46:00.000+08:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

A Baghlan cheese project in Afganistan

2009-06-10T15:12:00.003+08:00

Afghanistan, Baghlan Cheese Factory

This is totally something I want to learn more about!!! very cool. Anyone with info please email me at dinerbosschina@gmail.com.

Newsflashes

28 March 2007 | Baghlan Cheese Factory Inaugurated

Deputy Minister for Agriculture Jawad opened the Baghlan Cheese Factory in Industrial Baghlan on 28 March. The cheese factory project was implemented by the Dutch Committee for Afghanistan (DCA) and funded by the Government of the Netherlands.

The cheese factory project was part of a bigger project to rehabilitate the dairy sector in the province of Baghlan. The Netherlands established an ISAF-PRT in Pol-e Khomri, capital of Baghlan, from 2004 until 2006.

Wednesday's Wines, McMinnville Oregon

2009-06-10T12:10:00.004+08:00

File under BRILLIANT! This little wine and cheese shop (plus other things) focuses on wines in the $15 - $20 range and local cheeses. The name means a shop for the wine you might drink in the middle of the week.

From the cheese counter (called Abbie & Oliver's Artisan Cheeses) we tried the Caveman Blue from southern Oregon and it was so worth the price. Truley a world class blue. Sharp and acidic with a shovel of the farm still in it...... Heaven.

Tuesday-Thursday, Noon to 5:30 pm
Friday-Saturday, Noon to 6:30 pm
Sunday & Monday, Closed

We're located at The corner of 3rd Street and Cowls (250 NE 3rd St) McMinnville, OR 97128.

Phone: (503) 857-5665

The View Point Inn, Corbett, Oregon

2009-06-10T09:02:00.012+08:00

The Columbia gorge area in Oregon has a bunch of things going on. Followers of this blog will remember that I came very close to purchasing a hotel on the other side of Columbia river a short while ago. Not going through on that particular project hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for the area at all. Further my prediction that the area's wine and eco tourism industry would prove resilient this year despite the financial down turn and a few big failures of key properties that were poorly financed is proving to be true. People possibly are choosing vacation and tourism destinations that are closer to home.

This isn't a review of the View Point Inn. I was only there for a few moments, only tried two menu items from the lunch menu and didn't take pics of the interior. My brief encounter with their food gave me the impression that the focus right now is on keeping the cost down. Lunch prices were very reasonable. The brunch menu looks fantastic and is still very affordable. Nothing on the menu for more than $24 and the average price is in the teens.

As a point of interest, the View Point Inn is where they filmed a lot of the movie Twilight...

The attention to detail in the restoration of this historic inn is as inspiring as the spectacular views of the Columbia river one gets while there. A walk through the restaurant and a sit on the patio is a very impressive experience.

view point inn

View Larger Map

Text From: www.theviewpointinn.com

About The View Point Inn

The View Point Inn is quite possibly the most charming, romantic and elegant place on earth. This 1924 Nationally Registered Oregon landmark boasts a rustic upscale charm with a dramatic panoramic view of the entire Columbia River Gorge. The historic boutique hotel and fine dining restaurant is nestled high on a bluff overlooking the majestic Columbia River with breathtaking sunsets and the sparkling evening lights of Portland and Vancouver.

Only 22 miles from downtown Portland, this fairy tale Tudor Arts and Craft style inn is perfect for any event any time of year. Located in the Columbia Gorge National Scenic Area, the inn offers a unique blend of mother nature, culture and civilization. Surrounded by forest, flowers and sunshine or raising a toast next to a roaring fireplace and everything in between, we can accommodate you and all your guests in style inside or out whatever the weather or season — Summer, Winter, Spring or Fall.

The View Point Inn is a graceful step back in time. The 30 x 60 Crown Point Dining Room still has the original (Timberline Lodge lighting designer) Fred Baker chandeliers and wall sconces. There is a huge Rumford designed fireplace to warm up and toast by in the cooler months. The Crown Point Dining room has five French doors which magically open west on to the Sunset Veranda. The glass enclosed 60 foot long veranda looks out to glorious sunsets over the Gorge. A long walkway, connecting the Sunset Veranda to the garden fountain, invites you to stroll to the expansive panoramic view point. This romantic setting lends itself to a simple gourmet dinner for two or a large scale banquet, private party or wedding.*

Special event options can be tailored to your heart’s desire. For example, our popular Roosevelt Suite is perfect for a private dinner party, honeymoon or weekend get-away. Stay overnight and enjoy your intimate soiree overlooking the Gorge, linger by the private upstairs fireplace after dinner, draw a hot bath in the claw tub and luxuriously soak into dreamland before retiring. Enjoy our complimentary continental breakfast or have our chef create a breakfast tailored to your sensibilities and taste buds. Your imagination, our event coordinator and executive chef can create the perfect size menu and celebration for an unforgettable experience.

Our fine dining restaurant serves lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch. We are a reservation only property that seats up to 125 people. The Crown Point Dining Room books out quickly for dinner, Sunday brunch, private parties, banquets, and weddings. We have five distinct overnight lodging rooms and gift shop with items from the Northwest and all around the world.

Are you an avid outdoor fan? Bicycling, hiking and wind surfing await you. The View Point Inn is nearby the famous Crown Point Vista House, Multnomah Falls and the town of Hood River. For a more detailed description see What's Nearby.The Inn is the quintessential European getaway right here in Oregon. An oasis of civilization amidst the glorious natural setting of the Columbia River Gorge. The right setting for any occasion any time of year, nearby everything you could possibly imagine. Whether a private dinner party in our Roosevelt Suite or a grand birthday, anniversary, wedding or family reunion. The View Point Inn is the perfect destination place for any event!

Next Pic is from their website.

Click on the pic to visit their photo gallery

Attempt to delay smoking ban fails

2009-05-12T23:23:00.009+08:00

Smoking bans are fascinating and actually have a very long history. Their impact on restaurant and bar business is very debatable. Yesterday the Hong Kong government refused to put off the implementation of a ban on smoking in bars, clubs and mahjong schools. So, smoke is in the air!

The first recorded official ban on smoking was in Catholic Churches in 1590 by Pope Urban the VII (it included chewing and pipe smoking). The next big ban was a wooden government building in New Zealand. The most interesting stop, though on the Smoking Ban historical line is Natzi Germany. They get the mark for the first nation wide ban on smoking in modern times (1941). They banned smoking in most government offices, universities, hospitals and other places like that.

Adolf's disdain for any oral fixation is well documented but the order was based on research that is still considered relevant today (Karl Astel's Institute for Tobacco Hazards Research). The main idea though is that the notion to ban smoking publicly is not in any way new. Of course, lawsuit crazy Americans have inspired the most recent wave of laws in the US.

Most people who have experience with China will assume that a reduction in smoking is a low priority for the mainland but that actually is not the case. Smoking overall has been decreasing by 1% a year (actually a very big number) and the Olympics was supposedly a "Smoke-free" event. The central government has enacted a very serious plan to further support a reduction in smoking. Major chain restaurants like Pizza Hut have also had a huge impact on the public perception of smoking. Nevertheless, one wouldn't expect this to be something Beijing would stick their neck out for.

For us at EDDI-BITES, is issue goes beyond the arena health to the issue private vs public rights of space usage. In China a restaurant by definition is "public" space. In china a business owner does not have the right to deny service to anyone. "Sit-ins" are a common technique in contract and conflict negotiation. This is where a business like a restaurant will have conflict with a vendor and the vendor will organize a person to sit at each table all day long and not order anything. In this type of a case the owner can not remove them barring the owner have some sort of a special relationship with the area police.

In the past a restaurant space was defined as "private" in Hong Kong. This is what makes the issue so relevant to the Chinese government today. If a bar wants to cater to a smoking clientele they don't have the right to do so (as is the case in other places as well).

Property and business rights and the authority of Hong Kong law makers are what we feel are at issue in yesterday's action. 3 years ago the ban on smoking in restaurants and bars was passed with fanfare. The
Chinese government at the time interfered less with Hong Kong legal process. Today, because of the financial crisis social democrat Alber Chan Wai-yip wanted to put off the implementation of the ban on smoking in bars and clubs. There is good evidence to show that the ban increases sales in restaurants and decreases sales in bars. Here's where it gets interesting: They were told that they can not introduce legislation that crosses or interferes with government policy.

WOW!!!! Council president Tsang Yok-sing (jasper - appointed by Beijing and one of the biggest Beijing butt kissers in Hong Kong) issued the statement. He did say that they can try to get a signature from the guy with the next biggest office (in this case the chief executive - also a Beijing appointee). Small business owners should not passively observe this. It is significant, the merits of the smoking ban aside.

In the US now smoking bans are on the books in many places. They are largely unconstitutional. Nevertheless, most people in the states support a ban on smoking around food. Why work to turn back the clock when most people want a smoke free environment anyway? Bars are a different story and the data really does support a change in policy.

Our general feeling regarding Hong Kong is that the ban will not overtly hurt bars because enforcement is going to be lax. The city can't even enforce basic hygiene standards in restaurants. It's easy to photograph cooks not wearing hairnets, gloves or face masks. We have even collected a picture of a restaurant manager smoking in a cold kitchen area. That's definitely a case of smoking illegally already. Is it really reasonable to add more to enforcement's plate at this time? Pick any major regulatory point for restaurants and bars (fire safety systems, ventilation systems, etc...) and you will find that enforcement in Hong Kong is dismal at best.

Hong kong people may not want to hear this but standards in Hong KOng are bellow standards in Shanghai. Not regarding what is on the books but regarding enforcement. Why? Because Shanghai people know the law and there is always someone in the mix who will threaten to report you if you don't give them money. So you make sure your cook has the face mask on. It's that simple. In Hong Kong people rely on the regulator's to do their jobs. Most offices are very over worked. Now is not the time to add another layer of responsibility.

Gregory David Duerfeldt

..........................
Attempt to delay smoking ban fails
From the SCMP Tuesday May 12, 2009 A last-ditch attempt by a legislator to delay by two years the imposition of a smoking ban in nightclubs, bars and mahjong schools has been defeated.

Legislative Council president Tsang Yok-sing ruled that the attempt breached a ban on lawmakers introducing bills related to "government policy".

League of Social Democrats lawmaker Albert Chan Wai-yip, who initiated the move, criticised Mr Tsang's ruling as making a mockery of the legislature's power but said he was not too surprised by the result, given the non-democratic political system.

Mr Chan's bill sought to defer the implementation date of the smoking ban in venues like bars, clubs and mahjong schools by two years to July 1, 2011.

He said the deferment would help tide those establishments over the current economic downturn.

In his ruling, Mr Tsang said: "The amendments to be effected by Mr Chan's bill would defer the implementation of the smoking ban ... by a period of two years. As such, Mr Chan's bill clearly impacts upon government policy and the effect cannot be said to be negligible or minimal."

Accordingly, he ruled that Mr Chan's bill might not be introduced without the written consent of the chief executive.

Mr Chan said yesterday he did not intend to pursue the matter further.

"If the government is so eager to protect people's health, why does it not ban wine as well?" he asked.

He also said Mr Tsang's ruling had deprived the Legislative Council of a chance to review a bill it endorsed three years ago.

The amended ordinance extends no-smoking areas to indoor areas of all restaurants, workplaces and some public outdoor places. Some premises, like bars, nightclubs, mahjong schools and massage parlours, were allowed to delay the changes until July 1 this year.

"The economic situation now is totally different from that three years ago," Mr Chan said. "What legislators thought was suitable then might not be timely now."

Lillian Chan Yun-lin, convenor of the Entertainment Business Rights Concern Group, expressed "extreme disappointment" with Mr Tsang's ruling and accused it of "effectively killing their business".

"The smoking ban will drive away more of our smoker customers. We are not against anti-smoking [initiatives], but just want more time," said Ms Chan, whose group is a coalition of entertainment premises.

"If the government wants people to quit smoking, it should enhance education and not do so at the expense of our business.

Related links and references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsang_Yok-sing (Right)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_CHAN_Wai-yip (Left)

As easy as ABC : American-born Chinese are on a roll in the mainland's dining scene

2009-05-12T13:57:00.005+08:00

>By David Eimer of the South China Morning Post
May 11, 2009

When Alan Wong arrived in Beijing in 2000 he was a 24-year-old intern at a property company looking to spend a year on the mainland before returning to his native California to study law. Nine years later, Wong is a successful restaurateur and leads a burgeoning pack of American-born Chinese (ABCs) who are shaking up the capital's dining scene.

Stepping out from behind the sushi bar of his latest outlet, the second branch of his popular Japanese-themed restaurant Hatsune, Wong has every reason to be content. He owns or is a partner in eight restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai, with a ninth set to open next month.

He says the secret of his success is simple. "My business is not really like a business. It's just what I do - it's who I am. I don't consider it work - it's just part of my personality. The restaurants are my hobby and my staff are like my kids. Every aspect of my life has to do with the restaurants," says Wong.

It didn't hurt that the property company he interned at was owned by his multimillionaire father, who bankrolled Wong's first restaurant.

Even so, in a city where diners are notoriously fickle and restaurants open and close on a weekly basis, he has succeeded where many have failed. In part, that's because Hatsune was the first California-style Japanese restaurant in Beijing. More importantly, though, Wong aimed his restaurants at westerners, just as more and more of them were flooding into Beijing.

"I can't target the Chinese because I'm not Chinese. I don't consider myself Chinese - I'm an American, a foreigner," he says. "However, I always thought that if you open a restaurant targeting foreigners, then if it's successful the locals will come out of curiosity."

Now, 40 per cent of his customers are mainlanders, with that number rising as the global financial crisis takes its toll on Beijing's expatriate community. And while his baggy jeans, sneakers and T-shirt betray Wong's Californian upbringing, his ethnic background as the son of a Taiwanese couple who emigrated to Sacramento gives him a decided advantage over other foreign restaurant owners.

"It helps in building relationships with the local officials," says Wong. "It's a novelty for them. At first, they say, 'Oh your English is really good.' Then they realise that English is my mother tongue and then they ask questions like, `Who are you then?'. The fact that I look Chinese but I'm not Chinese is a topic for them to talk about and the more you have to talk about with people the better your relationship with them is going to be."

If Wong is the undisputed star among ABCs in the restaurant business in Beijing, then Handel Lee is their godfather. Best known for being the driving force behind Shanghai's Three on the Bund complex and the redeveloped Legation Quarter in Beijing, now known as Chi'en Men 23, the 47-year-old lawyer from Washington opened The Courtyard, the capital's first upmarket restaurant serving foreign cuisine, in 1996.

"I did The Courtyard because there were no standout places to eat, apart from in hotels. They just didn't exist in Beijing then," says Lee.

But just as Wong was helped by his father financially, so too was Lee able to grab perhaps the prime spot for a restaurant in Beijing, literally next door to the Forbidden City, because it was once owned by his mother's family.

Eileen Wen Mooney, the author of dining guide Beijing Eats, says Lee's legendary connections are the key to his success. "He's a guy with the right relationships to get historical places like the Legation Quarter," she says.

And like Wong, Lee believes his ethnicity was a benefit in building that guanxi [connectedness]. "I think it did help. There's a connection, almost an intimacy, with the locals. If I was just an ordinary American from Grand Rapids, people might not have helped me so much," he says.

But not all ABC restaurant owners have the advantage of rich parents or a bulging contact book. Leon Lee's first experience in the food and beverage industry was waiting tables in his dad's Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. After moving to Beijing in 2004, he is about to open Apothecary, a cocktail bar cum restaurant.

Lee, 36, sees being an ABC as a hindrance as much as a help. "My train of thought is very western and a lot of the locals can't accept that. A lot of times, you get kicked around because you don't look like a foreigner, but act like one.

"So they treat you as local Chinese when they want to, but they'll treat you like a foreigner when they need to take advantage of you," he says.

Nevertheless, he sees Beijing as a prime destination for anyone in the restaurant business, a reflection of the fact that the first privately owned restaurant in the capital only opened in 1980. "It's still frontier land, the wild east. There's a whole world of food that doesn't exist here, or it exists in different qualities, which you can bring here. There's huge room for growth and diversification," says Lee.

Many ABC restaurant owners are moving to fill those gaps. San Diego native Jen Lin-Liu spent two years researching her book on Chinese food, Serve the People: A Stir-Fried Journey Through China, before opening the Black Sesame Kitchen, which offers gourmet dinners and cooking classes in a courtyard off the hip hutong of Nanluoguxiang.

"There are definitely going to be more private kitchens like mine. It's a concept that's already taken off in Hong Kong and to some extent in Shanghai. You're going to someone's house for dinner, not eating out in a chain restaurant," she says. "I think in the future there are going to be far more niche restaurants for people who really care about food."

Richard Wang, another southern Californian transplant, opened the All-Star Sports Bar & Grill on the night of the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

"I think ABCs have seen a lot more than the local community in terms of restaurant concepts," he says. "When I came here it was all state-owned establishments or hole-in-the-wall places in hutong. That's changed, but we've all seen things overseas that no one has done here yet."

Knowledge of the latest western dining trends is something locals can't compete with. "Having that experience of New York or LA is a great advantage when it comes to opening a great place in Beijing," says Handel Lee.

"You know what works, so it becomes a question of execution. A lot of the local guys don't fully understand how a great place works because it's an alien concept - they haven't seen it at first-hand."

Few ABC restaurant owners, however, are prepared to challenge the locals by opening places serving Chinese cuisine. "From the perspective of foreigners, there aren't that many restaurants catering to them. But from the Chinese perspective, there are lots of restaurants and different varieties of them. You can't be a foreigner and think you're going to take some of that market," says Alan Wong.

Nor is he going to open any branches of his restaurants in the US. "I think they'd do very well, don't get me wrong. But I think if I went back to the States, I would like to quiet down my life a bit. I'd want to open something very small, like a 20-seat sushi bar with me as the chef," he says.

Until that happens, it's a safe bet Wong's empire will keep growing.

HOFEX Friday 2009

2009-05-09T18:04:00.003+08:00

Most vendors report fewer but higer caliber visitors this year.

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HOFEX 2009 Friday

HOFEX 2009 HONG KONG DAY 1 PICS

2009-05-07T12:36:00.002+08:00

hotelex Hong Kong 2009

Food Styling with Ed Gowans

2009-05-06T00:26:00.003+08:00

http://www.gowansphoto.com/

Carl Warner: Food Landscapes

2009-05-05T23:34:00.015+08:00

carl warner

Carl Warner: Festival Walk, info plates

2009-05-05T23:12:00.001+08:00

Carl Warner: Food landscapes, discussing the pictures

2009-05-05T23:04:00.001+08:00

Carl Warner Photos at Festival Walk: the execution of the exhibition

2009-05-05T22:38:00.013+08:00

Caramba: Discovery Bay, Hong Kong; an Eclipse concept

2009-05-04T15:13:00.021+08:00

One thing that impresses Spice 'n Slice about the HK mega- group Eclipse is that they keep their concepts simple. We like that.

Hong Kong's restaurant industry is dominated by a relatively small number of companies that each contain a large number of brands. Eclipse is one of these companies. They have a keen eye for the core idea of a concept and create brands that are so highly defined they are concept stereotypes.

The recession has hit restaurant chain operators hard in HK. Eclipse oversees (we don't honestly know what they own outright and what they have management contracts for) Coyote, Fogo Samba, Cafe Siam, McSorley's Ale House, Boca, the Curry House, McSorley's Fish & Chips and Don Gilato (this info taken from their own website). Three properties are in the hard-hit Venetian Macau.

Despite what must be financially a very tight time the Caramba is clean and well maintained. The staff are working hard. Its obvious they're trying to get through the recession by keeping the payroll close to the bone. That said they were friendly, well trained and very attentive. We were there during a very busy rush and were very well taken care of.

Caramba is unapologetically chips 'n guacamole. It's exactly what you want from a good nacho joint from the "wall of fire" to pitchers of ritas. Prices are fair for HK and the food given. Portions are large. The Nachos are really good, better than most dishes on the menu. They earn the Spice 'n Slice award for being the best nachos in China. Beijing to Hong Kong we've never had a more satisfying plate of nachos. Chipotle chili is a nice touch and they don't skimp on the cheese. At 98 HKD its a really good deal...

One more item of note: If you spend more than 100 per person you can get a free ferry ride back to HK.... the promotion is through the discovery bay management. We are not sure how long it lasts. Call the outlets to inquire (2987 2848 discobay@caramba.com.hk)

related links:
http://www.caramba.com.hk/
http://www.eclipse.com.hk/

First Confirmed Swine Flu Case in HK

2009-05-01T21:32:00.004+08:00

Hong Kong govt confirms first swine flu case

This is the first case of swine flu reported in Greater China since the outbreak of the disease in Mexico in March.

Friday, 01 May 2009 16:02

The Hong Kong government on Friday confirmed the city's first case of swine flu on Friday in a Mexican traveller.

Chief Executive Donald Tsang told reporters the Mexican travelled on a flight from Mexico to Hong Kong with a stopover in Shanghai.

This is the first case of swine flu reported in Greater China since the outbreak of the disease in Mexico in March.

Reuters
from: http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=41067

Spice 'n Slice Stock Report April 30

2009-05-01T18:31:00.003+08:00

Ticker Shock: Four Reasons Why Starbucks Could Give You a Buzz

2009-04-30T23:22:00.005+08:00

Starbucks never ceases to amaze.... first they say "we aren't buying the cheapest coffee beans in the world!" In fact, they are. Now they are saying "we aren't charging $4!" Hmmmmm........Marketing, Marketing, Marketing...... McDonald's is winning every coffee challenge... even our own. The gains recently are purely due to them dumping a bunch of locations everyone knew were losing money. Here in HK they are getting their butts kicked by McDonald's and Pacific Coffee.

from: www.minyanville.com

Starbucks (SBUX):
The one-time high-flying seemingly indestructible coffee chain that sports those insanely delicious (and addictive, I might add) “fraps,” was out with its second-quarter earnings last night after the bell.

At first blush, they looked like a train wreck. Revenues came in at a little over $2.3 billion, which was down from the more than $2.5 billion it put up in the comparable period last year. And EPS came in at $0.03 versus $0.15 in the comparable period last year.

However, at the end of the day, there were a few tidbits of good news that I think deserve a mention.

1. Excluding items, it put up $0.16, which was (hallelujah) a penny better than expectations.

2. It's cutting costs, which I think a lot of folks wanted to see. In the release, it said : “In the second quarter of fiscal 2009, the company delivered $120 million in cost savings, exceeding the targeted $100 million for the second quarter, and resulting in year-to-date cost savings of approximately $195 million.”

3. There was also some upbeat information regarding free cash flow. The following line in the release caught my eye: “...as announced in March, Starbucks fiscal year 2009 cash from operations is expected to exceed $1 billion, with resulting free cash flow in excess of $500 million.”

4. It seems the company is adamant about changing the perception people have of it. Reuters quotes its chief executive on a call as saying: “Starbucks coffee does not cost $4.” I think this is smart, and will make it better able to compete with the likes of Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's (MCD).

But will this be enough to really draw in investors? The jury's still out. I have this sense that the tide is starting to turn at Starbucks, but I’m cautiously optimistic. Note that its comp-store sales were off a stomach-churning 8%, which isn’t something to write home about

Spice 'n Slice Daily Stock Rpt

2009-04-30T18:43:00.006+08:00

INFO ASSEMBLED BY SLICE'N SPICE FROM YAHOO FINANCE

Wynn Macau

2009-04-30T16:12:00.001+08:00

Sen - Ryo at Elements in Hong Kong

2009-04-30T15:07:00.001+08:00

A Quiet Moment in the MGM: Macau

2009-04-29T16:27:00.013+08:00

More Patisserie Pics From the MGM: Macau

2009-04-29T16:14:00.007+08:00

Bust'n out the bresaola at the MGM Patisserie: Macau

2009-04-29T15:26:00.008+08:00

The Patisserie: MGM Macau

Walking through the MGM Grand Macau is a lonely experience right now. The Casino floor is getting some action and the fine dining restaurants have a few takers but overall F&B is really hurting.

Hotel staff not wanting to be named told Spice 'n Slice that the weekends are keeping them busy but more people eat at cheaper options outside the hotel than prior.

Which brings us to this late afternoon snack! To encourage diners to dine-in the hotel the cafe offers a set price of 88 hkd for your choice of gourmet sandwich, pastry and beverage..... For the quality of the food it is an outstanding deal.

I chose freshly sliced bresaola (Italian air-dried beef) with sun dried tomato, arugula and shaved Parmesan and grilled marinated egg plant. All on a superbly fresh, toasted panini bun.

For a pastry I had their stuffed Danish with real raspberry compote and covered with raspberry flavored white chocolate.

For the beverage I had a glass of unsweetened iced tea.

This really is a great time to roll the dice on Macau... Lots of good deals on all fronts.

Do you know of a good Macau special? Please send it to Dinerbosschina@gmail.com

Related links:
www.MGMGRANDMACAU.com

Biz Peeps to watch: Joseph Constanty

2009-04-29T12:31:00.008+08:00

LAW school will always be there, but there's a window of opportunity for China business, and American entrepreneur Joseph Constanty has seized the moment for business networking. Sam Riley reports.

For American entrepreneur Joseph Constanty, there was only one thing to do as he contemplated the failure of his first business venture - have a beer.

Constanty was just 27 when his first business idea, a mini-golf course in Shanghai, fizzled on Valentine's Day in 2007.

The Lucky Greens course was set in a lush fake jungle on a 100-square-meter area in the Cloud Nine Shopping Mall next to the Zhongshan Park Metro Station.

It had all the makings of a winner. The locals were going nuts for golf, the expats would love it, and it was a fun family outing in a city with not too many options.

But it never panned out.

The course was one of the mall's first tenants and it never got the foot traffic. Chinese parents preferred to watch their children than play a "kids' game" and the broad marketing campaign failed to hit the mark. Constanty dully watched the money ebb away.

Finally, when the electricity was shut off, there was an impromptu wake for Lucky Greens. "They shut our electricity off because we hadn't paid rent in two weeks and we had all this beer in the refrigerator and we didn't want it to go bad," Constanty jokes. "So, we got all the employees together and we played poker in this deserted mall until they turned all the lights off and that was my Valentine's Day in 2007."

But while sitting with colleagues and employees sipping a warm beer, Constanty was already focusing on his next big business idea.

Just two months after the demise of Lucky Greens, Constanty and his partner Ed Kim started NextStep, a business that aims to provide a forum for entrepreneurs to meet and swap ideas.

For the last two years they have run a regular social networking event on every second Tuesday of the month. They also hold monthly business forums, where like-minded entrepreneurs can exchange information on a particular topic.

Business efforts

Last year Constanty also launched NextStep Directory, a business directory that he hopes to expand to other cities around China.

"A week after we closed the Lucky Greens doors, Ed, myself and a friend Wen Ying sat down and thought what we are going to do, what does Shanghai really need that it doesn't have," he recalls.

"And in all of our business efforts we had never gone out and made an effort to talk with other business owners and expats to network and learn from them. So we thought, 'Let's find a way to get them all in one room together'," he says.

But the Philadelphia native's business career began in the States in the rather more risk-averse atmosphere of an insurance company where he says he was entertaining clients and "working on his golf game."

But Constanty had set his sights on China after spending part of his university studies in Beijing as a 20-year-old. He arrived in 2000 and, he says, was instantly "bitten by the China bug."

He also spent seven months studying finance and politics at the University of Hong Kong before graduating in 2002.

Knowing he would eventually return to the Chinese mainland, he quit his insurance job and moved to Taiwan in 2003 where he studied Chinese language while making ends meet teaching English.

Constanty had planned to go to law school in the States and decided to fill in a few months taking an internship at the Shanghai law firm Lehman, Lee and Xu in 2004.

But he never made it to law school, instead meeting his eventual business partner and fellow intern Kim.

"We used to fill in our days, talking about all these great business ideas for China, while at the same time learning a lot about business law here and how to set up a business," Constanty says. "We both decided that law school had to wait."

While all that is left of Lucky Greens is a Website that still gets the odd inquiry, their decision to chance their arm in China is looking promising.

They launched NextStep business directory and networking site (www.nextstepShanghai.com) last summer, and it has quickly grown to more than 8,000 members. As many as 12,000 people have attended at least one of their events and they get 12,000 unique visits a month from people looking for businesses and services.

Constanty and his brains trust have big plans for the directory.

"When you are looking for information, whether for your social life or business, it is not very well organized," he says. "The directory was a way of trying to do that and it still has a long way to grow in Shanghai, Beijing and all over China and Asia.

"There is a lot of competition in Shanghai for this, but Shanghai is only one location."

The keen soccer player and marathon runner says that work and making his business model a success consume much of his time and energy.

"I am constantly talking to people about their businesses, how to make their businesses work and their business ideas," he says, adding that there is a core group of entrepreneurs in Shanghai who are focused on seizing opportunities before they are gone.

"I always say law school will never go out of business but an opportunity in China may only have a window that is open for a short time and I don't want to miss that," he concludes.

Joseph Constanty

Nationality: USA

Age: 29

Profession: Business owner

Q&A

Description of self:

Opportunistic risk-taker.

Favorite place: The roof-top terrace at MiND Offices.

Strangest sight:

Everything is a bit strange.

Worse experience: Missing my flight home to the US on Christmas Eve 2007.

Motto for life: Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. - T.S. Eliot

How to improve Shanghai:

More parks where walking on the grass is permitted. There is something about walking on grass that is relaxing.

Advice to newcomers:

Get out and meet people. Building your network early will pay dividends later.

Info search regarding Asian food brands in the US

2009-04-28T12:55:00.003+08:00

Spice 'n Slice is doing research for an article about the viability of Asian food brands and franchises in the US market. The article will run on a major net franchise news site. Anyone with research suggestions, leads or information they want considered for the article please email us at dinerbosschina@gmail.com

Chef instructor Charles F. Drabkin on the state of culinary education

2009-04-28T11:29:00.024+08:00

A Spice 'n Slice interview: Chef Instructor Charles F. Drabkin
Interviewed by Gregory David Duerfeldt
Tuesday, March 28, 2009

Charles F. Drabkin is one of two chef instructors and coordinators for the award winning culinary arts degree program at Edmonds Community Collage in Lynnwood, Wa. (just north of Seattle). Many of his former students are currently working in Seattle's finer establishments.

What's the hot trend of the restaurant world this year? "Survival"

What do you see happening in the culinary education industry right now?
It is a tough time in the restaurant industry right now. Most restaurant business is down, often by 35% or more. Restaurants are laying all but their most qualified people off.

As Educators it is our commitment to help educate the next generation of food industry workers. Additionally as with the larger industry we are seeing a real dedication to using locally sourced, sustainably raised products where ever possible. Restaurants and other food service establishments are doing their best to be greener.

Are these schools making money? Is the business model working?
Edmonds Community College is supported by the State so we are able to offer our students a great value, while at the same time giving them a well rounded culinary education.

Are culinary school overpriced?
I think the private culinary schools like the Art Institute , Le Cordon Blu and even the CIA are overpriced. I would have a hard time charging upwards of $45,000 for a job that when the students graduate they will start out making around $10.00/hour.

I think the Community College model works well our students pay around $1,000/quarter for our 6 quarter program. The education is the same but at a much lower cost.

What are the top three things you hope your students master?
We emphasize employability skills; show up on time, sense of urgency, sanitation. For some of our students this is the first time they have been told that those qualities are important.
Obviously giving students a strong foundation in basic knife skills is also high on our list.
And thirdly I would say confidence in their own skills, many of our students did not do well in academic settings so we may be the first people who tell them that they can succeed.

Is there a hot new trend this year?
I think this year the hot trend in restaurants is survival. This is going to mean cutting costs while maintaining high quality. I think restaurants at least in the Pacific Nor thwest are going to continue to focus on the bounty that comes out of our region.

What needs to change in culinary curriculum?
We try to keep our curriculum very up to date. Additionally the restaurant industry is very cyclical so it is important to continue to teach the classics while at the same time introducing students to the array of products that are available from around the world.

Over your time teaching what's changed in the industry?
The Molecular Gastronomy has really blossomed in the time I have been teaching, we see more people incorporating some of those techniques in to non-molecular gastronomy restaurants.
Also the greening of the restaurant kitchen. We can now compost 100% of our food waste, we use compostable to go containers, only buy fish from well managed fisheries and source locally whenever possible. These developments are really a plus in my book.

If there were one person you could tell to Piss Off in the food industry, who would it be?
It is probably not a single person but whoever decided that tomatoes should be available all year round and turned them from a delicious seasonal treat to the crispy red bags of water that the conventional tomato has become.

Who do you admire in the food industry?
Anyone brave enough to go out and follow their passion and open a restaurant.

What should an employer expect from a graduate of your school?
They should expect someone with a good grounding in the basics, strong knife skills etc, someone who knows not only how to but also the importance of being a good team member. Additionally they should expect someone with and understanding of the hard work it takes from every employee of that restaurant from the Executive Chef to the Dishwasher to make their restaurant successful.

Is there a gap between what the institutions put ou t and what the industry needs? If so what are schools doing to bridge this gap?
One thing we have trouble replicating is the busy Friday n ight experience where one of the other cooks has called in sick. Our fine dining restaurant is just never that busy. We try to bridge this gap by making the food for the cafeteria on campus, this does give our students the opportunity to learn in a restaurant that serves upwards of 500 people a day. Additionally all our students spend time interning at restaurants which gives them a chance to see what is really out there, and often leads to jobs for them.

Have you had a student really impress you? If so what was it about that student?
I have students who impress me all the time. It tends to be the students with a real passion for food and this industry.

Related links:
Edmonds Community Collage Culinary Arts Program
International Pinot Noir Celebration

why the heck Helsinki?

2009-04-27T20:03:00.002+08:00

Why the heck Helsinki?

It was such a weird sign! I was walking from Kenedy town to
Central, exploring the multitude of old Chinese supply stores
and here this tiny coffee counter boasted the best coffee in
Hong kong.

Honestly, the coffee was a bit light for this adict. The
foam was perfect. Made with percision.

Why the name Helsinki? I got so caught up in the entertaining
storytelling of coffee/sandwich counter owner Adolf Cheung I
don't know if he ever answered.

That'll have to be a subject tabled for our next visit to
this lunch hole-in-the-wall, and I will be back. It's a hike
and a half out of the way, sandwiched between vendors who
sell dried shark fin and rice flour. A thimbal sized
disovery for the food lover.

The menu is simple but made with a lot of thought and care.
For example, my club sandwich today: Smoked turkey ham
sauteed to order, 3 fresh eggs scrampled with cracked pepper
and melted cheese literally right infront of me, properly
toasted bread (no mayo! Yea!), a perfectly ripe tomato,
endive, onion... all dressed with a very light viniagrette
and dusted with dried herbs and powdered parmesean.
A simple sandwich with every component handleded perfectly.
Fresh. Yummy! As a chef I can honestly say that I can't make
that sandwhich any better. Ok, Ok, I would add avocado....
but only because I love avocado on anything. Nevertheless,
the sandwhich was so well done I only thought about the
missing avocado while writing this.

Adolf has an engaging smile. “I had no idea what I was
getting into! I just wanted to do something for myself.”
What was he doing before? Investment banking. When asked
which is harder he very quickly replied, “are you crazy?
restaurant! It takes so much work everyday.”
Adolf had another customer so I was only able to ask one more
question: would you go back to being an investment banker if
you could? He smiled and answered “So long as I have this
opportunity I will be here making the best sandwiches I
can.” - Adolf, we love you! So long as you are at that
counter making every sandwich so nicely, we'll be back.

Quickie: Sands Macao may be on the block for 1.3 bil

2009-04-27T13:47:00.001+08:00

In the paper today.... well be in Macao tomorrow following up on this one.... Cheers

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST:
- The Sands Macao, the first foreign-owned casino in the world's largest gaming market, may soon go on the block for a bargain basement price of about US$1.3 billion.

Yum! Brands Inc. Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

2009-04-27T13:38:00.004+08:00

From: http://seekingalpha.com/article/132703-yum-brands-inc-q1-2009-earnings-call-transcript?page=-1

Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM)

Q1 2009 Earnings Call

April 23, 2009 9:15 am ET

Executives

David Novak – President & CEO

Richard Carucci – CFO

Tim Jerzyk – SVP IR & Treasurer

Analysts

David Palmer - UBS

Jeff Omohundro - Wachovia

Jason West - Deutsche Bank

Thomas Forte – Telsey Advisory Group

John Glass – Morgan Stanley

Greg Badishkanian - Citi

Joe Buckley - Banc of America

Steven Kron - Goldman Sachs

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

Steve West – Stifel Nicolaus

David Tarantino – Robert W. Baird

Fitzhugh Taylor - Thomas Weisel Partners

Mitchell Speiser - Buckingham Research

John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

Keith Siegner – Credit Suisse

Presentation

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, at this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Yum! Brands 2009 first quarter earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) I will now turn the call over to Mr. Tim Jerzyk, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer; please go ahead sir.

Tim Jerzyk

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. This call is being recorded and will be available for playback. We are broadcasting the conference call via our website at www.yum.com. Please be advised that if you ask a question, it will be included in both our live conference and in any future use of the recording.

I would also like to advise that this conference call includes forward-looking statements that reflect management’s expectations based on currently available data. However, actual results are subject to future events and uncertainties. The information in this conference call related to projections or other forward-looking statements may be relied on subject to our Safe Harbor statement included in our earnings release last night and may continue to be used while this call remains in the active portion of the company’s website at www.yum.com.

In addition, we would like you to please be aware of several upcoming Yum! investor events, where you’ll have a great opportunity to meet leadership teams from our businesses. First coming up next we have on June 24 we will host Pizza Hut Investor Day in Dallas and will follow the next day with YRI Investor Day, Yum! Restaurants International, on June 25 also in Dallas.

We’ll give you a double back-to-back chance to meet with both teams in Dallas. Then July 29 is KFC Investor Day in Louisville, and then August 11 is Taco Bell Investor Day in Irvine, California. Please notify us if you plan to attend these events. And then lastly our next second quarter earnings release will be on Tuesday, July 14. That’s a quick update of our calendar of events coming up.

On our call today you will hear from David Novak, Chairman and CEO, and Richard Carucci, our CFO. Following remarks from both, we will be happy to take your questions. Now I will turn the call over to David Novak.

David Novak

Thank you Tim, and good morning everybody. I’m very pleased to report better then expected first quarter EPS growth of 14% before special items. The power of our global portfolio allowed us to overcome a challenging environment with modest system sales growth of 4% and operating profit growth of 7% prior to foreign currency translation.

Importantly the momentum behind the key driver of our global business, international development, continued with a record 256 new restaurants opened outside the United States including a first quarter record of 98 new restaurants in Mainland China.

Additionally we generated worldwide same store sales growth of 1%, the 22^nd consecutive quarter of positive same store sales growth including 2% growth in Mainland China and 6% growth in Yum! Restaurants International, offsetting the decline that we had in the United States.

Our operators also improved our worldwide margins by more then one point from the benefit of a combination of pricing taken in the second half of last year, managing the details and productivity, and moderating commodity inflation.

Overall this was a strong start to what everyone knows is a difficult year. Now let me take you through our key strategies and the results of each of our divisions.

First let’s talk about China, where we have the unique strategy to leverage our powerful team and infrastructure to build leading brands in every significant restaurant category since we’re on the ground floor of this important market.

Overall China continues to be the fastest growing major economy in the world, even as it weathers an obvious bump in the road. Importantly I think its safe to say based on our results that our Yum! China business stands on solid ground given our strong profitability, powerful new unit economics, and the strength of our leading brands.

For the first quarter our China division drove strong results. System sales growth was 12% prior to foreign currency translation. New unit development included 98 new openings in Mainland China, the best start to a year we’ve ever had. Additionally same store sales growth was plus 2%. Importantly our restaurant margin was up 1.7 points.

All of this led to impressive profit growth of 21% excluding positive foreign currency translation, lapping 23% growth last year. I’m proud of our China team for delivery such as strong quarter in a tough year and at the same time, continuing to make investments in our emerging brands.

You may remember in December that we told you that our China business was planning for a weaker first half of 2009. We expect that to continue as we lap 14% same store sales growth and 38% profit growth in the second quarter. Richard will go into more detail on these numbers later on.

Now let me give you a little more color on each of our China brands, KFC continues to lead the western QSR category with nearly 2,600 units today, and impressive average unit volumes of $1.4 million, which is even more impressive given the fact that the average ticket of about $4 in China is less then half that of the US level.

We are clearly appealing to the mainstream masses in China. We continue to leverage our new incremental sales layers at KFC including breakfast, delivery, and multiple proteins. Importantly, we continue to generate high returns on our KFC new unit development with cash-on-cash paybacks of just over two years.

Pizza Hut Casual Dining continues to be the leader in the western casual dining category with 429 units in 107 cities and our closest competitors have less then 30 units. Pizza Hut is dialing up the dining experience through a broader menu including new entrees with beef, chicken, and shrimp, along with more and more beverages and desserts and our Chinese customers are loving the new Pizza Hut.

We are also building new units in more tier 3 cities. And as I said we continue to invest behind the development of our emerging brands. Pizza Hut Home Service, a new category that we are building, continues to grow and we expect will add over 20 new units this year and add four new cities to our fold.

With [east dawning] our Chinese fast food brand we have plans to open about 10 units this year as we develop the operating platform for large scale and get our unit level economics to where they need to be. In March we also announced a new investment in Little Sheep, the leading chain in China’s large high growth hot pot restaurant category. The hot pot category is a new category for us and generates an estimated nearly $1 billion of sales in China.

Little Sheep has seen impressive growth since it first opened its doors nine years ago and now has 375 units and a proven management team that will continue to be solely accountable for running the day-to-day operations.

In addition to our portfolio of leading brands, we believe we have key long-term strategic advantages in Mainland China. First, an unmatched development team which we know is the largest on the ground in Mainland China. Importantly this team has the knowhow around development in over 550 cities. We are literally across the country in China and establishing scale everywhere.

Second we have an unparalleled distribution system which has the capability to bring food and supplies to all these areas of this very large geography that Mainland China represents.

Third we have developed targeted management manufacturing facilities for specific products we serve such as our proprietary egg tart dessert which is a significant part of our KFC menu mix now. And finally we have a strong and very tenured executive management team and a tremendous bench of RGMs that are ready to open new units.

This operating capability gives us the ability to open up great restaurants with great returns and give our customers a great experience. We believe when you combine these strategic advantages with the strength of our leading brands and the high returns that we have, we are able to have big growth opportunities ahead of us in China for the long-term.

There is no question clearly that Yum! is doing its part to stimulate the Chinese economy. Over the next three years we plan to invest over $1 billion in new capital in Mainland China, build 1,500 new restaurants, and add over 75,000 new jobs to the economy.

China continues to be the largest restaurant opportunity of the 21^st century and is clearly a place that we plan on doing business for a long, long, long time.

Now, on the Yum! Restaurants International, which represents the balance of our international operations, where our strategy is to drive aggressive expansion and build strong brands everywhere. Here I would like to acknowledge that more then 700 franchisees around the world which are opening over 95% of our new units and keeping this business on track for profitable growth.

For the first quarter system sales grew 10% prior to foreign currency translation including same store sales growth of 6% and development of 145 new restaurants in more then 45 countries. Operating profit growth was 4% excluding foreign currency translation and was lower then our sales growth as expected, primarily due to the lap of a lost tax benefit in Mexico. I’ll let Richard Carucci, our CFO, give you more details with his comments.

The best news for this division, was in addition to the strong new unit opening was the strong performance in YRI’s two largest KFC company markets; the UK and Australia, along with our franchise in Japan. These more mature businesses generated solid same store sales growth in the first quarter and showed the resilience of the KFC brand when we’re well operated even in a tough economic environment.

In our Yum! Restaurants International emerging markets I want to highlight the great progress our team is making in India where our KFC same store sales growth was better then 30% for the first quarter and margins substantially improved versus year ago. We are absolutely confident we are well on our way to developing proven unit economics and that will allow us to reach a scalable business model for KFC. We are also very excited about introducing Taco Bell into India later this year.

Finally Yum! Restaurants International is in the process of rolling out KFC’s biggest global initiative to build an incremental new sales layer around its new Crushers beverage line. Crushers was launched first in Australia last year and we’re expanding Crushers to more countries and more stores this year and expect them to be in about one-third of our YRI KFC system by year end.

Crushers is successfully bringing KFC a new base of products that will allow us to begin building a full line of contemporary beverages that can be enjoyed as snacks and desserts.

At Pizza Hut we are expanding value options at Yum! Restaurants International, enhancing our dining menus and varieties, and which includes the expansion of [inaudible]. Longer-term we believe that Yum! Restaurants International is the division with the greatest potential given the five billion people. We’d like them to spend a billion dollars per person, but five billion people in the over 100 countries represented, where we have only three restaurants per million people compared to 60 restaurants per million in the US.

The strength of our over 700 franchise partners and their commitment to building new units should make this our largest division one day. In fact our team is working on both goals to make YRI a $1 billion profit division in the future.

Next, let’s talk about our US business where our strategy is to dramatically improve our brand positions, consistency of performance, and returns. Here I’m proud of the profit growth our teams are generating and the long-term brand building we are doing even though we have mixed results on sales.

Our first quarter sales in the US were lower then expected, the same store sales declined 2% due to weakness at KFC and Pizza Hut. Importantly our margins were up due to higher guest checks and moderating commodity inflation along with productivity measures taken in the restaurants.

We also began to see the benefit of actions we took in late 2008 to reduce our US cost structure. Overall we were able to generate operating profit growth of 7%. Taco Bell continues to perform well in this environment even though it faces more pressure as more and more QSR sandwich chains offer $0.99 value menus.

You will see new Frutista frozen flavors and continued innovation around our why pay more value platform. The brand continues to be well positioned for a successful 2009 after a solid first quarter. And remember Taco Bell generates 605 of our US profits.

Pizza Hut performance was impacted by declining dinner sales across the industry as more consumers chose to cook at home. We expect the next couple of quarters to be challenging for Pizza Hut in the US as the consumer continues to be under pressure and in part due to the lap of the strong results of Pizza Hut generated last year.

Value continues to play an important role with our customers and is a challenge for us and so we’re currently promoting our Panormous Pizza for $10. While we are slugging it out on sales, we are making strategic investments this year to more firmly entrench our Tuscany Pasta sales layer and nationally launch our Wing Street line of flavored chicken wings.

We are convinced an arsenal of pizza, pasta, and chicken will allow us to leverage our assets more fully throughout the week which we believe is critical to Pizza Hut’s long-term success. The Tuscany Pasta sales layer continues to contribute a healthy mix of sales particularly in the early part of week and benefited from the added variety of lasagna.

On the chicken front, Wing Street continues to grow with about 150 new units this quarter and we will be on air with television in the fourth quarter with advertising where we’ll be talking about the great opportunity for even more variety people can enjoy with Pizza Hut.

There’s no question we will go into 2010 a stronger and more vibrant brand with better capability to leverage our delivery business and assets.

On to KFC where there’s no question we underperformed this quarter and we were also impacted by weak dinner sales. Our big new initiative however is to build a new sales layer at KFC and that’s with Kentucky Grilled Chicken, which was launched here in the United States. As the brand’s most successfully tested product, Kentucky Grilled Chicken offers consumers a new way to enjoy the great taste of KFC and will broaden the appeal of the brand.

I want to comment Roger Eaton and the team for the absolutely great job they have done in rallying the system around the KFC’s biggest launch of this new product. We really encourage you to come and try the unfried side of KFC and we hope you enjoy this product as much as our customers tell us they do. Its absolutely a terrific, terrific product and we’re very, very proud of it.

So let me wrap up and put the total Yum! Brands experience into perspective and tell you how I think you should look at Yum! Brands’ performance. We have clearly gotten off to a better then expected start this year, but realize its early and there is a lot of hard work yet to do. So don’t get ahead of us either for the second quarter or for the full year.

However, I can confidently tell you that we plan to do what it takes to continue our track record of meeting our target of 10% earnings per share growth this year. Now let me turn it over to Richard to give you the financial update.

Richard Carucci

Thank you David, and good morning everyone. In this section of the call I’m going to comment on three areas; our first quarter results, our outlook for the second quarter, and our approach for managing our business during the balance of 2009.

As David mentioned first quarter results came in better then anticipated as we delivered EPS growth of 14% excluding special items. The upside versus expectation was driven primarily by strong profit performance in China, strong margins in the US, and a favorable tax rate for the quarter.

Please note that reported EPS declined in the first quarter. This was driven by the sale of our minority interest in KFC Japan in the first quarter of 2008, which resulted in a $0.13 per share gain. As we have stated previously EPS excluding special items is more indicative of the performance of our ongoing business.

Now let’s dig into the first quarter results and let’s start with China, China division system sales grew 12% excluding foreign currency. We were pleased that division operating profit grew at a healthy 21% excluding forex. As David mentioned this is on top of operating profit growth excluding forex in 2008 of 23%.

The strong profit performance was fueled by new restaurant development and strong margins versus prior year. In the first quarter we opened a record 98 new restaurants in Mainland China. New units continue to meet our high expectations with projected return on investment of about 30%. This is an all-in return taking into consideration estimated sales transfer of nearby stores and an allocation of corporate G&A.

Trust me, as long as we continue to expect this type of return we will continue to rapidly expand in China.

Restaurant margins were 23% in the first quarter or 1.7 points above prior year. This increase in margin was primarily driven by 2008 pricing actions and moderating commodity inflation. You may recall that throughout 2008 margins were negatively impacted by significant commodity inflation partially offset by pricing.

It is nice to see the commodity environment move in a more favorable direction. In fact, we now expect $50 million of commodity deflation in China for the full year after the first quarter that saw commodity inflation of $3 million. Now let’s move to Yum! Restaurants International.

Top line growth remained robust as system sales growth prior to forex translation was 10% and was driven by same store sales growth of 6% and net unit development of plus 5%. Importantly our franchisees continue to lead this growth as they opened 97% of our first quarter new restaurants.

As expected YRI margins were down one point, primarily due to the loss of our exemption of the Mexican value added tax, or VAT, as well as commodity inflation. Since we lost this VAT exemption in the first quarter of 2008, VAT will not impact our results for the remainder of this year.

YRI completed the first quarter on target by growing operating profit 4% excluding foreign currency translation and continued to achieve balanced growth driven by our outstanding franchise partners. However, forex is having a major impact on this business, dampening first quarter profits by $21 million and resulting in lower dollar profits in 2009 then 2008.

In the United States same store sales decline of 2% came in below expectations due to declines of 3% of Pizza Hut and 7% at KFC partially offset by same store sales growth of 2% at Taco Bell. Despite these negative US sales, we saw a first quarter US margins grow 80 basis points. We are seeing an improved commodity environment in the US. In the first quarter we saw commodity inflation of $9 million which was below our expectations.

For the balance of 2009 we currently expect to see modest commodity deflation. US profitability in 2009 will benefit from the restructuring which was completed in late 2008 and early 2009. The $20 million in G&A savings in the first quarter was slightly ahead of schedule mainly due to project timing.

We continue to anticipate $50 million in cost savings for the full year. We are quite proud of the efforts of our US teams to achieve these productivity improvements. This blend of restaurant margin improvement and G&A reductions led to operating profit growth of 7% in the US in the first quarter.

Our full year 2009 profit plans has always been backend loaded so we are quite satisfied with our first quarter profit performance. While we are planning for a weak consumer atmosphere to persist we are excited by the recent launch of Kentucky Grilled Chicken. This thoroughly tested product has demonstrated the ability to bring in new customers to our restaurants and successfully broaden the appeal of the KFC brand.

Prior to closing the books on the US I would like to briefly mention that our refranchising program has continued to progress forward. Although tight credit markets continue to slow certain transactions, we refranchised over 100 restaurants in the first quarter, predominantly Pizza Huts, and we are on pace to achieve our full year target of 500 refranchised units.

When you pull it all together it is great to see each of our divisions achieve profit growth prior to forex translation in this challenging environment.

The EPS growth of 14% before special items also benefited from the significantly lower tax rate and few average diluted shares outstanding. All in all, we were quite pleased with our first quarter results.

Now let’s look forward to the second quarter, we continue to expect the first half of Yum!’s year to be more difficult then the second half. We expect that the second quarter will likely mark the low point of the year. This is due to a number of factors that include: lapping the all time low tax rate of 14.8% last year, continued negative impact from foreign currency of nearly $25 million on YRI’s operating profit, lapping over $10 million in property sales gains and lease terminations as well as the potential increase in impairment charges, an extremely tough lap in Mainland China.

Let’s remember that during 2008 the same store sales comparisons in Mainland China were plus 125 in Q1, plus 14% in Q2, plus 5% in Q3 and plus 1% in Q4. The difficulty of the second quarter lap is typified by last year’s March amazing same store sales growth of 28% for KFC. In 2009 March same store sales growth was negative as we lapped this incredible performance.

The lap eased considerably to single-digit growth by the end of the second quarter. While we will likely see negative overall same store sales in the second quarter in China, we have already begun to see improvement in current trends.

After what we expect will be a challenging second quarter we’ll be roughly where we expected to be when we started the year, poised for a solid second half due to some easier expected overlaps. In particular we are overlapping significantly easier sales numbers for our China business as I just outlined.

We expect to experience favorable year over year commodity cost upsides. The introduction of Kentucky Grilled Chicken, which combined with other initiatives should generate better US sales results. We expect the negative impact of forex to moderate during the year especially in the fourth quarter. While we have talked about the numbers it may be useful to review how we are approaching the way we are managing the business during this year.

First of all, we are living in a difficult environment to make forecasts. As you all know over the past year we have seen huge volatility in the stock market and in commodity markets. In our restaurant world it is harder then normal to predict how sales and costs will play out the remaining part of this year.

We are focused on continuing our streak of consecutive years of double-digit EPS growth. I am very proud of how Yum! managed its costs in the first quarter and will continue to run our business assuming that it will be a difficult economic environment.

In the slug-it-out environment that David talked about, we have every expectation our people will meet their cost targets in areas that they can control. We will not however sacrifice our long-term growth. We recognize that one of the things that makes Yum! special is our global growth. As we have stated before, we believe we have a very long runway for this growth.

Therefore we will continue to make investments. As an example, we continue to build new [east dining] units in China and new Taco Bell units in YRI even though we recognize that these brands will probably not contribute significantly to Yum!’s overall profits for the next 10 years.

The first quarter announcement of a 20% stake in a China hot pot concept is another indication of our long-term approach to growth and investment. We remain very confident of our growth strategies. We believe we are making strong progress in developing sales layers. We remain the largest retail developer outside the US and we are strengthening our brands around the globe.

I believe we are doing this in a way that is both consistent with our people-oriented culture and is very mindful of our responsibility to add shareholder value. I am confident that we will end 2009 with an even stronger and better positioned company.

Now let’s open it up for questions.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of David Palmer - UBS

David Palmer - UBS

Question for you in terms of the US business particularly those dinner oriented concepts, it seems like the high price point items these days, even when they are appropriate for a family party, are just turning out to be a very difficult sale, they’re perhaps doing worse then you would have gotten in a test result even when that test was as recent as 2008. For instance you rolled out lasagna this quarter, I’m wondering how much that puts at risk this grilled chicken rollout that would of course be that same sort of target, multiple party family group that’s been so under pressure, how you’re thinking about how in general you’ll position stuff for the family better to make it work.

David Novak

I think you know, whenever you have a marketing opportunity that’s big, its usually when you’ve solved the biggest problem that occurs most frequently. And the biggest problem that occurs most frequently for KFC is that people are looking for a non-fried option. So this is a quantum problem that we’ve got a great solution for.

So we think that this brand, this product will hold up well in this environment. The other thing is the team has done a very good job to think about the challenge of dinner and if you’ll notice we’re currently launching Kentucky Grilled Chicken with a two piece complete meal offering for $3.99, and people believe this to be a tremendously good value at the low end so we’ve got a strong low end value.

The other thing is is that we’ve got breakthrough bucket promotions scheduled because now we give the consumer the choice of both fried and grilled products. And the other thing that we’ve done is that we’ve significantly improved the quality of our advertising versus test. We’re basically asking people to unthink KFC. You think of us primarily as fried chicken, well we’re not only fried chicken, that great fried chicken you love, but we now have unfried chicken as well.

And we’re challenging America to taste the unfried side of KFC. So, we’ve got a, the team has done rallies all around the United States. Our team members are very excited about this product. They’ve all tried the product. Our customer compliments are coming in at higher levels then any that we’ve had for any product. So we’re very excited about this. Its early in the launch but we think that this brand or sub brand of KFC, Kentucky Grilled Chicken, will hold up well in this pretty challenging environment for dinner as you pointed out.

David Palmer - UBS

One quick question, with regard to China, are you seeing two year trends stable or improving in a way that makes you feel pretty confident that the comparisons will bear out and that you’re going to get back to positive territory maybe within this second quarter for China, any color there would be great.

Richard Carucci

Well we expect them, again, what happened in the second quarter as we mentioned, it was a very high overlap in total, plus 14%. But we had almost unprecedented levels month to month, which we had plus 28% in March as we said. It actually drops to plus 85 in May on the KFC side. So over the quarter we probably expect to see similar types of two year growth, but we’re going to see different types of results month to month just because of the unusual 2008 overlaps.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Omohundro - Wachovia

Jeff Omohundro - Wachovia

Another question on China, I wonder if you could just give us a little bit of a broader update on the consumer environment there, your sales building initiatives, and how you’re sustaining your average check in that market.

Richard Carucci

We really haven’t changed our approach that much in China. One thing to keep in mind is just the impact that we had on pricing and inflation last year. We had very large commodity inflation on chicken that started in late 2007 that went throughout last year. That sort of forced us almost to take pricing throughout the year, and always chasing that piece. So the impact that pricing had actually moderate throughout the year because we start to unravel, unwind from those price increases that we took in 2008.

But basically the trends that are different in China really the stuff that David talked about in his speech, we continue to build sales layers in breakfast, delivery, and more proteins and that’s the direction we keep going in China as we continue to broaden our menu and broaden our appeal.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jason West - Deutsche Bank

Jason West - Deutsche Bank

Just wanted to touch a little bit on the margin improvement globally and particularly in the US, I guess I was a little surprised by the strength of the margin rebound particularly with the negative trends, comp trends in the US, and you touched on some productivity initiatives there. If you just get into a little more detail on what drove the margin improvement and sort of what kind of things you’re doing in the first quarter that you weren’t doing the last few years.

Richard Carucci

We’ve been working hard, so one of the things that didn’t happen, which I mentioned earlier, where we did benefit from commodities and the relationship between commodities and pricing. But we’ve been working hard on the little things so its sort of the day in and day out pieces but you probably also saw some improvement in the labor line and as an example of that, at Taco Bell had a get ready in the morning program that simplified the start up of their operation which allowed them to take labor out.

And all the brands are doing sort of their versions of that and so what usually happens with stuff, it’s a bunch of little stuff but I think part of it is we sort of knew coming into the year we were going to have to be very focused on the cost side and we got the benefit of not having to chase the price in commodity piece so now you’re seeing that flow all the way through.

Jason West - Deutsche Bank

And I guess it looks like your outlook is a little on the conservative side, I mean if you carry through this kind of margin improvement for the rest of the year, or was there certain things in the quarter that will be difficult to sustain, maybe with pricing rolling off or something like that. I’m just trying to understand how to think about the rest of the year on the margin side.

Richard Carucci

Well as I sort of said, its really hard to predict what the sales and commodity impact will be exactly so we gave you our best expectations of that in the call. We’re going to keep working on those other little things. So I don’t know if we’ll always get as big an impact we had on the labor side. On the flipside of that though I expect during the year we may benefit a little bit more on some leases because we are obviously pushing back on lease costs and we probably will get some benefits of that later part of the year.

So its, I’m hoping that we continue to get these types of productivity initiatives throughout the year but we’ll see how it plays out.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Thomas Forte – Telsey Advisory Group

Thomas Forte – Telsey Advisory Group

I was hoping you could give us an update on [for] Pizza Hut in the US and for Kentucky Fried Chicken, what percentage of their sales are from the dinner day part and then when we think about in the US, the monthly comp trends, was there a significant difference between January, February, and March.

David Novak

I think you’re looking at the percent of the dinner day part for KFC I think is around the 65% range, 60% to 65% range and I think it would be the same for Pizza Hut in the dine in business but its obviously much higher in the delivery/carry out only business.

Thomas Forte – Telsey Advisory Group

And then one quick follow-up, how would you characterize the performance at KFC since the rollout of the value menu.

David Novak

I think we improved our transactions but we didn’t get the overall sales lift that we would like to have had because the dinner day part has been so soft for us. So, we’re very excited about the new chapter that is just beginning this week and we expect it to pay off for us.

Richard Carucci

I’m hopeful that the combination of the grilled and the value will play off each other, in other words, grilled gets some new customers to the restaurants. When they come there they see that we also have the value menu so I’m hoping that that interaction works well throughout the balance of the year.

David Novak

I think just to put what we’re doing in the US into perspective, I’m actually very pleased with the direction that we’re heading at all of our brands, as challenging as this time is and this year is. But you know, KFC for the first time, we now have a national value menu and hats off to Roger Eaton and the team for being able to get the franchisees on board on that and the franchisees are very excited about the direction of the company.

We now have a very valid non-fried product that we’re extremely proud of so the two biggest issues we had at KFC, which is value and the need for a non-fried option, we’ve at least got something on the table that we can build from as we go forward. So there’s no doubt in my mind that we have positioned our back of the house capability with the addition of ovens. The focus that we put on operations at KFC, the team has been just relentless at getting our stores clean, getting our staffing right, getting ready for this launch.

So, and while we’re not perfect, we’re definitely moving in the right direction from an operating standpoint and I think we’re doing the right things to get KFC set up for more growth in the future. Pizza Hut which is also being hit by the dinner issue that we’ve talked about, strategically we are right on the money with what we’re doing. We are continuing to [fortify] our pizza position by improving our product quality with the improved ingredients.

We’ve launched a tremendous value initiatives with Pizza Mia and Panormous, but more importantly we’re broadening our menu to include both pasta and chicken. We’ll be launching Wing Street nationally with national advertising in the fourth quarter of this year. And there’s no doubt that as we go forward that pizza plus pasta plus chicken is going to give us a greater opportunity to leverage our assets throughout the week and we’re also working on lower priced items that will help us get into the lunch/snacking day part as we go forward.

So the team is very focused on leveraging the assets that we have which is a huge advantage that we have and moving away from just being a Friday, Saturday, Sunday business. So that’s, there’s no doubt that strategically we’re doing the right stuff there. I think the biggest challenge we have at Pizza Hut is we’ve got to communicate it.

When you stand for pizza for 50 years, and that’s what you are, its hard to overnight get credit for having phenomenal pastas, which we have and by the way the customers tell us they want this, okay, and its hard to get credit for having chicken. And its going to take time for us to communicate this and what we’re really pushing for as a team is more provocatively communicating the tremendous transformation that’s going on at Pizza Hut.

And I’m confident that the team will do that over time. Taco Bell, which is 60% of our profits in the US, is having a very solid year and we expect it to have a very solid year. We continue to add to the quality of the menu. We continue to fortify, about our why pay more value proposition. You’ll be seeing some great chicken products that will be introduced in that as we go forward. And we’re making our beverage line, Frutista, even more and more appealing as we think about how we leverage that equipment.

And we’re also testing some stuff to really leverage our assets even further. Everything from breakfast to dinner meals, a lot of things are going on. So strategically, I am absolutely convinced that we’re doing the right stuff in the US and there is no doubt in my mind that we’re going to get through this year and be stronger and better as we go into 2010.

So this is a slug-it-out year clearly. We’re not happy with what’s going on with our dinner business which is Pizza Hut and KFC primarily, but I am very happy with the actions that we’re taking to build these brands, make them more broadly appealing as we go into the future which is really the must have that we’ve got to have in the US.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Glass – Morgan Stanley

John Glass – Morgan Stanley

A couple of questions, this thing first with the US and your comments on Taco Bell, it does seem as if the brand has slowed sequentially, I think there was high single-digit comps in the back half of last year and I don’t know what the year over year comparison was, but maybe if you could indicate what that was and if that was one of the issues, and also are you beginning to lap value or is it a competitive issue, why did you see that sequential slowdown at Taco Bell.

David Novak

I think we have always seen at Taco Bell, when everybody gets in the $0.99 value game which everybody’s doing, and gets into that game, that has some impact on Taco Bell’s business. We’re number one in value. We have built that value. The consumer tells us we’re number one in value and so no one is better positioned then Taco Bell is from the value front.

But make no mistake about it, there isn’t anybody in the industry that isn’t doing some sort of value menu today and trying to get into that $0.99 or lower game. So that clearly takes some of the fun out of your business, even though you’re as strong as can be. And I think that’s exactly what’s happening with Taco Bell right now. We have a very strong platform, the number one platform in value in the category which is allowing us to get positive same store sales growth and we’ve got the why pay more menu that we are going to be bringing news to as we go forward.

But this is, I characterize this as a slug-it-out year. This is, you’ve just got to take the gloves off, slug it out, take on competition, keep building your brands, and be strong as hell as you go into 2010. And I’m very confident that Taco Bell is doing the right stuff there, but there’s no doubt that we’ve got a lot of competition that’s getting into our arena that wasn’t there before.

Richard Carucci

Just from a numbers standpoint, you’re right, last year throughout most of the year we were running about 8% same store sales growth. That was due in part for our, we were overlapping problems from the previous year. Going into the year we didn’t expect to have that kind of growth rate. Its probably a little lower then what we would like it to be for the reasons David just talked about.

John Glass – Morgan Stanley

And then on China, I appreciate your comments on pricing and how that’s helped margins, your labor line though was, dollars grew at a lesser rate then your units even, so have you been doing something in the restaurants in China to adjust labor as you’ve seen sales that were softer year on year and then also in answering that you talked about commodity deflation of $50 million, what was your initial expectation for commodity dollar impact.

Richard Carucci

The margin piece first, on the labor side, the thing that we have done is we’ve reduced the number of managers in the restaurants, in some of the lower volume restaurants and that was sort of a planned initiative that started towards the back end of the year.

I believe we thought that commodities would be about flat when we started the year and so we went from flat to an estimate of minus 50. Obviously what I said about being hard to forecast in this environment is true, but the leading reasons for that decline, really the biggest one is chicken. We sort of documented chicken stuff in the past and the second is oil. So those are what’s driving the $50 million difference.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Greg Badishkanian - Citi

Greg Badishkanian - Citi

Just two questions, first on China, beside the difficult comparison in March, have you noticed any difference in consumer trends, are they trading down or is there anything that you’re seeing there.

Richard Carucci

We haven’t seen a lot, starting towards the end of last year what we saw a little bit on the trade down side was little lower incidents on drinks. And since then we really haven’t seen anything significant.

Greg Badishkanian - Citi

And April I’m assuming picked up a little bit because compares are a little bit easier.

Richard Carucci

We expect again, as we sort of said we weakened in March because we were overlapping the 28, April is still a fairly tough overlap and then it gets to I think it was about 20 for KFC and it gets to plus 8 in May, so its in May when we’ll start we think to see an improvement in the trends.

David Novak

You’ve got 28%, 20%, and 8%.

Richard Carucci

That’s for KFC.

David Novak

That’s for KFC which is obviously the mother load in China so, we’re overlapping phenomenal performance.

Greg Badishkanian - Citi

Good performance last year, absolutely. And on the US side, turnaround with KFC grilled chicken, have you gotten some early indications from franchisees and customers in the test markets, based on all of that would you expect, how much type of pick up would you expect once consumers become aware of that new product.

David Novak

The only thing I can say is that we’ve got the highest compliments that we’ve ever received at KFC on any new product. People are literally calling in and saying we love this product and thank you very much for bringing into our menu. Look, we just started the advertising so I mean I, its very early days but we are very confident that it will improve trends based on the previous tests that we’ve done and we’re even more confident that the KFC brand is going to be a lot better because of it and it gives us a lot more opportunity as we move ahead.

And remember there’s no, actually the margins were better on Kentucky Grilled Chicken then it is from on our fried product. So there’s every incentive in the world to sell people a lot of grilled chicken which is something that we haven’t had in previous efforts.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Buckley - Banc of America

Joe Buckley - Banc of America

Couple of questions on China as well, first just a clarification on that monthly trend and this may not be the way to look at it but help me here, if I add up 28, 20, and eight and divide by three I get 18 to 19% same store sales growth for the second quarter, I realize those are the KFC numbers but am I thinking about that the right way. Is that the KFC compare?

Tim Jerzyk

That is the KFC compare only, that excludes Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut did not have the same significantly strong numbers.

Richard Carucci

Again Pizza Hut last year we had [added] a lot of units so they had very modest same store sales during that period.

Joe Buckley - Banc of America

The macro news out of China seems like its getting better the last several weeks and again I’m kind of curious what you’re seeing there and your check was up in the quarter, do you feel compelled to do discounting, are you moving in that direction, or just kind of what you’re hearing from Sam’s team over there in terms of their read on the economy and the consumer.

David Novak

Well I think its definitely a more challenged consumer, you know you guys read everything that we read, what’s going on, the GDP I think last was reported at 6.1%. Most economists are saying that you’re going to have a stronger second half. Retail sales were up 15%. Disposable income up 10%. These are the things that everybody is basically reading and are aware of.

Listen, what we do at KFC and Pizza Hut and what we’ve been doing in China is building great brands and the great thing is is that we started these brands from scratch and they’re like diamonds, and we just keep polishing the diamond and what I love about what the team is doing is we’re just trying to be more proactive and being ahead of the consumer.

We’ve got shrimp and beef now that we didn’t have last year. We’re delivering KFC chicken. We didn’t deliver KFC chicken so that’s going to be getting us into the dinner day part, get us into more office business, get us into more convenience. We’re broadening the appeal of the brand. We now have breakfast in 91% of our stores. Its still less then 10% of our mix. We know what the kind of breakfast that McDonald’s has built over time.

Well, we’re building that breakfast and so that gives us lots of upside as we go in the future. So I think what the team has been very focused on is not over reacting to short-term issues and making sure that we build the overall value of our brand by giving the consumer lots of innovation. Our strategy at KFC has been innovation. And I’ve heard some people talk about, well our street vendor has taken business away, well street vendors have been around since the Ming Dynasty.

And we got, we don’t have any issues with street vendors. What we have issue, that’s making sure that we just keep making our brand stronger. If you look at Pizza Hut in China, what we’ve just done at Pizza Hut is we’ve added tremendous variety, beef proteins, more fish, rice dishes, more beverages, more desserts, we’re trying to make sure that we get even better at delivering five star quality at a three star price. That’s what the big brand positioning is there.

And the team has been very proactive because we don’t want any casual dining competitor come into China and have more of a better casual dining offer then us. And one of the things that we’ve learned in other parts of the world, is that we hung in with just pizza for way too long and so the team has been very proactive to learn from the past on Pizza Hut and making sure that we really drive the heck out of the Pizza Hut business by broadening beyond pizza earlier in our lifecycle.

So it’s a very proactive move. And then I think we’re taking on pizza at home service. We’ve got one number national call system. That category is coming. So I think the big message I’d like our investors to know about China is that we’re great at brand building in China and I think that what I commend the team on doing is being proactive at building the brand and broadening the appeal of the menu.

Our value bases, the surveys that we do, is very, very competitive and we don’t think we’re really taking a backseat to anybody on the value front. And at the same time we’re obviously opening up the new units which I think, as Richard pointed out, we got two year cash on cash paybacks, you got 30% returns including cannibalization. And it’s a pretty nice formula over there which we don’t take for granted and I think the only thing we can do to screw it up is to not keep building the brand.

That’s what the team is really, really focused on.

Richard Carucci

If I just had to categorize what we’ve felt from an economic standpoint, I won’t go all the way back to the Ming Dynasty, but just in the last year, is that we felt the earthquake last May so we were flying, you sort of, you heard about the numbers that we gave you on the same store sales during the second quarter.

And then we felt again towards the end of the year, when you had the whole news from the US etc. where the China consumer got a bit more conservative. We haven’t seen a lot of huge swings after that time up or down. It was never as bad as what people were saying it was going to be in my judgment and I haven’t seen any huge swings the last few months either. So I’d say those have been the two events that we sort of felt.

David Novak

Just to give you a little bit more color like in KFC, we’re in 25 markets right now with delivery. We’ll be going to 60 as we move into the year. We’ve got new products coming in at breakfast, our Szechuan beef wrap is now being marketed more aggressively. These are all things, some are beverages. We also introduce new summer beverages, that’s coming.

So, there’s a good lineup of activity as we go forward, let’s not call it activity, how about action.

Joe Buckley - Banc of America

The Taco Bell slowdown, I realize you got a national footprint but I think you [skewed] at California and I guess I’m curious if California is an issue behind that Taco Bell comp slowdown.

Richard Carucci

I wouldn’t lay it there, we’ve had the same types of trends that other companies have had. The states have been tough, have the ones that have been tough in housing and the overall economy, places like California, Florida, Las Vegas, but I don’t think its that big a part of our, of the slowdown.

Joe Buckley - Banc of America

Last question, the guidance left out those two words, at least, that we’ve become accustomed to hearing and given the big first quarter bead I guess I’m curious why.

David Novak

Well I’ll tell you, I’ll answer that, first of all in the fourth quarter we said we were going to do 10% and everybody thought we were being way too optimistic. So if people said you get 10%, my God that would make you one of the few great companies in this kind of year. So, 10%, we’ll do 10%. Of course, if we can beat 10%, we’ll beat 10% but we just thought it was a great way to take some of the feedback that maybe we were a little too optimistic in the year.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steven Kron - Goldman Sachs

Steven Kron - Goldman Sachs

In the US, just going back to Taco Bell for a second, obviously seems as though there’s some incremental competition there as everybody is going towards this $1.00 or $0.99 menu. Given that its 60% of your profitability can you just talk us through a little bit of how the profitability of that brand is holding up with 2% same store sales and I guess related to that, if I back out a big part of the year in the US as the G&A cost saves, if I back out the $20 million that you reported, I think the core business profitability was down 6%. I think your target is for that to be 6% growth in the year excluding the cost saves, so can you just walk us through kind of what needs to happen from the comp line to get to your goals.

Richard Carucci

Well in terms of Taco Bell on the profitability side, Taco Bell, we’re not going to breakdown brand by brand on profits, but Taco Bell because they have the best sales outperformed out total US business and I mentioned on the margin initiatives, the one that I did mention was that Taco Bell initiative in terms of having the morning startup being more efficient.

So we’re very pleased with the work that’s being done there.

Steven Kron - Goldman Sachs

And as far as kind of the second piece to that, the down 6% profit excluding the G&A going to plus 6% for the year.

Tim Jerzyk

Keep in mind the margins were up almost two points so it was more then just G&A. The only thing is keep in mind KFC and Pizza Hut comps were negative. We expect as the year progresses, I think we mentioned it earlier in the call, that we expect especially the second half performance led by the two that were down, KFC, the grilled chicken launch, we expect some benefits from that.

And we always expected the second half to be stronger. That was what we said even back in December. Its always going to be a tough first half.

Steven Kron - Goldman Sachs

On the Kentucky Grilled Chicken launch, as far as year over year comparability on media impressions, is that significantly higher or are we thinking is that ultimately it’s the same amount of money being spent, its just on a new platform.

David Novak

I think we’ve put a lot up against this, but its I think basically within the same budget that we had last year. There isn’t any incremental spending behind it. One thing I would point out to you though is that one of the marketing things that we will be doing on Monday, April 27 is that we’ll be making that on Friday and we’re going to be offering a free piece of chicken at every KFC, all day, any time the restaurant is open.

So, we’re going to be encouraging all America to come in and try Kentucky Grilled Chicken and get a piece of it and enjoy it. We think it’s a product that if we can get it in people’s mouths, are going to come back and eat it again and again, because it stands up to our, the quality of our original recipe. And so, the key here is to getting [trial] and that’s what we’ll be doing.

But we are not making a significant incremental investment from an overall media perspective behind Kentucky Grilled Chicken.

Steven Kron - Goldman Sachs

Sticking with the US, talking about the dinner day part at Pizza Hut and KFC, you kind of attributed what you think is the competitive move of consumers moving back to the maybe at home consumption I believe, to what extent do you think some of these casual diners which seem to be moving their menu price points down and that seems to be intensifying further, how much of that could be playing a role because it doesn’t look like its going to get much easier.

David Novak

We haven’t quantified that. Really couldn’t quantify that right now. I always say this, when anytime anybody starts getting in your arena, it takes the fun out of your business. So I don’t think anybody is walking around saying, this is a really fun year. I don’t care who you’re talking to, because everybody is very, everybody is striving to get those sales dollars out there.

Having said that, there’s nothing like having great powerful brands and there’s two things that drive your business in any kind of situation like this. We’ve done all kinds, we’ve looked at every economy and all the history, the brands that are offering great innovation and offering good relative value, they can do well in these times. And I’m very proud of the performance of Taco Bell. Taco Bell improved their margins. Taco Bell had positive same store sales growth overlapping 9% growth last year. So I think Taco Bell had a pretty damn good quarter and we think that Taco Bell is going to have a very good year.

KFC and Pizza Hut have not had enough true innovation or enough value to separate themselves from the rest of the pack and as I’ve said before that’s when you’re results languish. And I think KFC’s challenge is to make sure we launch Kentucky Grilled Chicken well and get trial of that product and I think the numbers will reverse in spite of the fact that people are eating or cooking more at home.

I think if we do the job and do it well and this product is as good as we think it is, we’ll be able to report some good results and that’s what our intent. I think our challenge at Pizza Hut is that our product innovation is a lot better then our marketing because we’re not getting enough credit for the fact that we got unbelievable pastas, at incredible value, and our pizzas are in the same vein. So we’ve got to really start marketing the transformation that’s going on there so the consumer really gets it.

Because right now, I think where we stand primarily for pizza versus pizza and the pastas that we have and then we’ve got to build awareness of Wing Street in the fourth quarter when we launch that brand with national advertising which I think because it is real innovation and it will see positive results from that.

So we don’t really have a lot of stories to tell around here. The bottom line, this is like what are we doing, okay, to win in the marketplace and I think we did enough to win with Taco Bell in the first quarter and not enough at KFC and Pizza Hut in the first quarter and hopefully we’ll be able to make more progress as we move through the year.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

A couple of questions as we kind of think about you mentioned the back half of the year presumably getting better, being more second half weighted, if it was necessary that you needed more levers to pull to drive the 10% loss EPS growth, just wondering whether you see the G&A opportunity as potentially more meaningful. It seems like you kept the $60 million, you achieved 20 sooner then you thought, whether there’s upside there or whether you’d reconsider share repurchase as we move half way through the year with cash accumulating, I’m just wondering what are the potential levers you might have there.

Richard Carucci

Well we’re not planning any other major actions at this time so I think it’s the actions we’ve taken will be where we’re at. I think $60 million is still a pretty good number. What I said before though is we each have our budgets, given that we’ve sort of said it’s a slug-it-out year, I don’t think anyone’s going to miss their numbers. So if anything, there may be some small upsides to that number, but I wouldn’t assume anything significant.

Tim Jerzyk

On commodity inflation, we did have some, keep in mind from a US perspective we had I think about $8 million of inflation in Q1 in the US and we’ll probably have just a little bit in Q2 and then in Q3 and Q4, the back half is definitely deflation. So even though you had a pretty significant benefit in Q1, there is still a pretty good swing from first half to second half in that category as well.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

So the US cost of goods that already over 100 basis points of favorability this quarter would only seem to accelerate in terms of additional favorability the rest of the year.

Tim Jerzyk

Just in terms of commodity inflation the best year over year will probably be Q3. So you have a little bit of inflation this quarter, a little bit less next quarter but still some inflation and then the back half will be all deflation. So there will still be continuing benefits.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

And the potential for share repurchase, I know you talked about reconsidering midway through the year, is that something that you would do at this point or are you still looking to stockpile cash.

Tim Jerzyk

We are very focused on strengthening our balance sheet in very tough financial times and we have no plans for share buyback at this point in time for this year, no plans at least. We’re always evaluating that but we’ll be in the second half focused on debt reduction.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

Just on China, just wondering it seems like you’re going full speed ahead which seems to be the right approach for you, I’m just wondering whether you’re seeing [press] disparity by tier, I know you said you’ve kind of changed your growth plans periodically just based on tier 1 versus tier 6, just wondering whether you’re seeing disparity in terms of results there that would lead you to change your growth plans, or how the different tiers stacked.

Richard Carucci

No over time what’s occurred is that we probably have been going into the year a little bit more aggressive on the lower tiered places and a little bit more conservative on the top tier cities, especially on the Pizza Hut side. On the KFC side, we are looking at probably some shifts not necessarily by tier but geographically depending on sort of the impact on the export business. But those are not hugely significant but there will be some adjusting that occurs there.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

Are you seeing the southern markets be weaker then the northern, was that by geography what you mean by that.

Richard Carucci

Eastern and southern are a bit weaker. They tend to be the areas that have impacted more on the export reduction.

Tim Jerzyk

Our southern markets are definitely several points below the market average, which is what you would expect.

David Novak

And I think in its own way kind of points out the strength of our China business because we’re so dispersed throughout the country in 500 cities, and we can go where the fish are really biting.

Tim Jerzyk

As Richard said earlier, we are looking at the central and west as I’m sure as you’ve read the government is spending a lot more money infrastructure wise in the central and west part of the country. We have representation there already because of our distribution system that can take us anywhere and we’re going to continue to leverage that as Richard said.

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays Capital

Just lastly the KFC with the grilled product I think you said at the Analyst Day, that I guess in test market that it was doing something like an initial 8% lift to sales and you thought you’d be able to capture or keep 4% of that, or half of that over time, is that still a reasonable assumption layering in on top of what your current comp trends are.

Richard Carucci

No, I think we said [what was going to say] about the grilled, again a lot of things have changed in terms of where the base business was etc. so obviously next call we’ll have a lot more to say on the results.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Steve West – Stifel Nicolaus

Steve West – Stifel Nicolaus

Just a quick question on the grilled chicken sales and kind of following up on that last question, what are the sales trends that you did see in the test markets, was there a big spike when you’re kind of supporting it with TV advertising and then followed by subsequent pullback, it seems like that’s what I’ve seen in a couple of the test markets I’ve seen out there.

Richard Carucci

What we saw was, we saw a decent spike but it was actually a build in spike. It wasn’t the way some promotions were where the first week or two weeks is the strongest and [inaudible]. It actually built more then some of our other promotions did and then again, we had several test markets and it held at different times half its value once we took it off etc. but then we pulsed it as well with some smaller advertising thereafter.

So again I think that this is going to be quite different for some of the reasons David talked about and that we’re putting a very big effort against it right now with different types of advertising and my guess is even the way we decide to pulse future advertising maybe a bit different then the test. But the thing that was good about the test is that a decent chunk of it stayed on even with very limited advertising and clearly our goal is to make this, not just a permanent part of the menu but a significant part of the menu for a long time.

Steve West – Stifel Nicolaus

Have you gotten any kind of consumer feedback on, I know the chicken tastes great but its smaller and so I was wondering in this value environment are you getting kind of any consumer pushback on paying the same price for what appears to be a smaller piece of chicken.

David Novak

I think consumer generally knows its smaller because there isn’t breading on the chicken. We have had in some isolated markets some issues with piece size which we’ve gotten all over and its mainly where products might not have been in the spec range so we’re very well aware of that but we have not had any abnormal complaints.

In fact what we are getting is abnormal compliments. We’re getting more compliments at KFC then we’ve ever had in our history on any product.

Tim Jerzyk

And I would add since I have some KFC background, I’m even getting compliments from the buy side community from folks who are already trying it and I’ve never gotten that before.

David Novak

Well those guys don’t have a heart. Just kidding.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Tarantino – Robert W. Baird

David Tarantino – Robert W. Baird

Congratulations on a good start to the year, question on the outlook, what type of comps do you think you need to get to a 10% EPS growth number for the year given all the improvements you’re seeing in the cost outlook.

Richard Carucci

I couldn’t begin to answer that exactly because obviously so much depends on China and not just the US so, but what we are assuming in general is that because of the commodity piece is we can do with lower sales then normal. So normally we say same store sales in the two to three range, we could do with probably several points below that in this commodity environment and get to where we want to get to.

But obviously it depends on a lot of factors, but that’s sort of one thing to think about. Probably throughout the globe, I sort of think China as well, we could probably get there with a couple points less then normal if the commodity situation holds the way we’ve sort of talked about it today.

Tim Jerzyk

A couple of points for the full year.

David Tarantino – Robert W. Baird

And then a question on the YRI business, which was very strong on the top line and you mentioned a few countries in particular, the UK and Japan and Australia, are you seeing the economies in those markets start to rebound or improve or are you doing something specifically to drive the business there.

David Novak

Actually I was talking to Albert [Milotti], who’s doing a great job running our Australian business last night, and actually the economy is looking tougher there. The unemployment is projected to go, get higher, so I think what we have in our global markets is one of the big advantages I think we do have is we have less competition. When we look at global brands, you’re looking at McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and KFC primarily in most markets. You can add Burger King, and Dominos in other markets but you don’t have the tremendous proliferation of chains that you have in the United States there so, people, when people say well you ought to be doing better in a tough economy, I think its better to do better in a tough economy when you have less competition.

But I also can tell you that we’ve had tremendous innovation in Australia, Japan, and the UK on a relative basis and it goes back to that formula I was talking about earlier. When we’re doing our job we do well and I think it’s a combination of us doing our job well plus less competition I think allows us to be successful there.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Fitzhugh Taylor - Thomas Weisel Partners

Fitzhugh Taylor - Thomas Weisel Partners

I just had more of a longer-term question, you mentioned earlier in India in the call, there are obviously a lot of similarities from population and unit growth opportunities with China and I was wondering if, how much you’ve considered maybe an owned infrastructure and owned unit system there similar to China versus to the typical franchise YRI model.

David Novak

I think we’re looking at balanced approach in India, not as dramatic as what we have in China which is primarily all equity but what we are doing right now is we’re investing equity to get KFC and Taco Bell established. Pizza Hut there is basically 100% franchise and so what we think we’ll have over time in India is a balance between equity and franchise, both KFC and Taco Bell.

So, we’re very optimistic about India because our brands are being so well received and people like the food so much. We actually think Taco Bell may have the highest degree of opportunity in India because of the great vegetarian products, the carrier, the spiciness of the food, which we can even modify to be more relevant to the Indian taste. So these are brands, both KFC and Taco Bell, that we’re very well prepared to invest equity in but at the same time, we think we’ll have a balance between equity and franchise long-term in India.

Richard Carucci

And regarding your question on distribution, in China we got into that when obviously the economy was infant when we got there, but you didn’t have a lot of professional distribution that we thought had the ability to get national scale quickly, that could handle things like refrigeration etc. In India there actually are a couple of very professional distributors already established there so there’s really not the need to do that.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mitchell Speiser - Buckingham Research

Mitchell Speiser - Buckingham Research

First off, just on YRI with comps up 65, is that a system wide comp or a company operated comp.

Tim Jerzyk

System wide.

Mitchell Speiser - Buckingham Research

Can you give us just some of the highlights and lowlights on that six, it was particularly strong, was there anything that was particularly weak or just above average.

Richard Carucci

I’d say, well first of all we’ve got some detail in the release in terms of geography, nothing really jumps out of the page. I think [inaudible] one of the things that I’ve been pleasantly pleased and surprised with is just the number of countries that we’ve had that are positive. Whenever you obviously have a global business, we’re in 100 countries we have a large number of them usually up and down at a point in time and probably for the last year and a half, we’ve had an abnormally large percentage be up and that’s sort of been holding up pretty well.

Our weakest markets, that impact us the most, have been a couple of our equity markets, Mexico and Pizza Hut Korea. We haven’t seen big trend changes in those businesses. They’ve been an issue for the last year or so.

Mitchell Speiser - Buckingham Research

Just on KFC US, I think last quarter you may have mentioned a comps target of 7% for the year, are you revising that target at all.

Richard Carucci

What I sort of said before is our expectation is probably a couple of points lower at least in the US for the full year but we haven’t sort of broken that out by brand yet.

Tim Jerzyk

That’s because of Q1 being below what we expected.

Mitchell Speiser - Buckingham Research

And the China comp target of 5% is still on track at this point.

Richard Carucci

We’re going to update our sort of numbers at the next release sort of across the business, again early to try to make the full year call changes at this point but again, probably we expect China to be worse then what we thought in the first half but we still feel pretty good about what we thought would happen in the second half.

Mitchell Speiser - Buckingham Research

Just on the US cost savings, the $20 million that happened a little sooner then expected, can you just identify maybe some of the bigger buckets in that $20 million.

Richard Carucci

Well the $20 million, the overall piece, I mean most of it we did expect, it was due to headcount reductions associated with the restructuring that we did of our business. The extra amount is just sort of we had some projects timing across the board that some of that money is going to be spent later in the year but again, the large part of it we did expect its just a little higher then what we thought it would be.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

Question on YRI if I may, obviously the division did not participate in the commodity improvement of the store level cost management as did the other divisions, and that is even excluding the Mexico VAT change, so if you could whether for the rest of 2009 or going into next year what could change that. Is it just a matter of focusing on those numbers and secondly, do you think your G&A is structured correctly in dollars for YRI especially given the fact that I guess you said 95% of your growth is from franchisees.

Richard Carucci

Well the first piece of it, you’re right, the commodities in YRI are different then US and China and there’s a couple of reasons for it. First of all YRI tends to have longer-term contracts so we did not get as big a downside, nearly as big a downside in YRI last year because we were locked in on longer-term contracts in 2008 then we experienced in the US and China.

And we’re sort of getting the reverse of that this year as we did lock in some of the longer-term contracts in 2008 before sort of the commodities came down. So we were locking in higher costs for 2009 YRI so YRI will sort of either reverse of what the US and China was, was that they weren’t impacted too much this year.

We expect them to not get the benefit this year though as well and in fact, so they’re probably get more of that benefit in 2010 if things stay low. So that’s one piece of it. The second dynamic on the YRI piece is that a fair number of the costs, especially of a couple of our equity markets, Japan, sorry Korea and Mexico, were sort of either US based or influenced strongly by the US dollar. So we are getting some commodity inflation due to that in some of our equity businesses.

So we expect commodity increases at YRI to get slightly less as the year unfolds so we expect less of an increase in the balance of 2009 then what we saw in the first quarter but we still expect overall increases of YRI.

John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

On G&A, I mean that hasn’t been a focus for you, obviously the US has and the money you’re taking out is significant, is there a similar type of thought that you might be able to put to work at YRI.

Richard Carucci

Let’s remember, on the US piece what drove it was the refranchising, right, so it takes fewer resources to manage a franchise restaurant then it does a company owned restaurant and that’s really what drove the US piece of it. YRI ownership percentage has been there, again, it goes up and down slightly but its pretty much stayed where its been for a while. So the only place, time we expect to see anything on the G&A side was if we refranchise a market which in the scheme of things isn’t going to make a huge difference on the overall number.

And clearly we are investing in some of the growth markets like India, France, etc. where we’re building up longer-term businesses in those countries when you start out you do have a little bit more as a percentage of sales on G&A so we’ll get some benefit of G&A leverage down the road as those markets become more mature.

Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Keith Siegner – Credit Suisse

Keith Siegner – Credit Suisse

Quick question on Pizza Hut, we’ve talked about the strategy, we’ve talked about one of the biggest challenges being communicating the changes in product offerings, as you think about this year, you’ve got Wing Street coming really in fourth quarter, you’ve got the Panormous, and you are lapping last year’s pasta hut introduction, how should I think about the marketing budget for this year. How you improve that awareness and communicate those changes, so how you approach the marketing budget for the balance of this year pre that fourth quarter introduction, and maybe what you do with pricing and promotional effort to help as well.

David Novak

Well I think, again we aren’t spending incrementally. We’ve got significant budgets because we’ve built into our contracts in both company and franchise stores so, the advertising is more of a fixed cost but what the team is doing is they’re focused on layers, tiered spending, making sure that we spend on pasta and pizza simultaneously and then when we launch Wing Street it will be supported with money that’s been put in to the budget as a percent of Wing Street sales.

So, I think I would look at the way we spin the market to bring more on a layered basis or a tiered basis.

Keith Siegner – Credit Suisse

In China one of the things that we talked about back at the Analyst Day and in the original guidance for the year was the opportunity for G&A leverage in this model going forward and despite the profit upside in the quarter actually G&A was pretty much flat as a percent of sales year over year, really wasn’t a lot of leverage. How should we think about given the potentially weaker first half sales environment potential for G&A leverage in China this year.

Richard Carucci

What we have said is that if you look at our broad model that in the past we have not gotten G&A leverage, right, so if you look at how we’ve gotten sales and profits in the past it was pretty much led by unit development. We expect still unit development to take the largest part of our growth but what we said would occur over time is we get a little bit more from two areas. One pricing which we’ve already started to do, that was led by unusual chicken cost increase a year and a half ago. So we expect to get modest pricing and we also said we should start to see some G&A leverage.

I think we had about a point of leverage in the first quarter so we saw a little bit of it coming but I think where we’re going to get it is still going to be over time and it doesn’t have to be a huge amount of money. Don’t forget we’re continuing to invest in start up ramps like [east dining] and pizza at home service etc. but we are starting to see a little bit of leverage on the KFC side.

I expect that leverage to hopefully grow a little bit over time.

Tim Jerzyk

And we did in total revenues we were up 19% and our G&A was up 16% so we did get a little bit of leverage, the growth was less then revenue, that is definitely a little bit better then in the past and then also keep in mind we were lapping leap year which impacted the top line by a couple of points.

Operator

There are no additional questions at this time; I would like to turn it back over to management for any additional or closing comments.

David Novak

I’ll just briefly wrap up here, first our China business is on solid ground and continues to grow as we build leading brands and develop new units with high returns. We believe the Chinese economy is stabilizing and remember China is still the number one restaurant opportunity for the 21^st century and we are very well positioned there.

Second Yum! Restaurants International continues to be the division that we think has the greatest long-term potential for Yum! Brands and continues to produce consistent results with the strength of its broad based business in over 110 countries with 700 franchisees.

Third our US business is now set up with a more efficient operating structure and is focused on executing new incremental sales layers that we’ve talked about and our ownership strategy. We expect that with the moves that we’re making this year to strengthen our brand. We expect each one of our brands to go into 2010 stronger and better positioned more with opportunities to leverage the assets that we have.

And finally we expect to generate a huge amount of cash coming from each of our divisions as we grow our business and maintain our industry-leading return on invested capital. And with all these things we expect to, we can achieve our EPS growth target of 10% in 2009 and beyond. I want to emphasize that the second quarter will be our toughest quarter but we expect very good second half performance.

So with that I will close and thank you all for being on the call and go out and try Kentucky Grilled Chicken and the unfried side of KFC. Appreciate it.

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YUM group kicks "A"

2009-04-27T13:31:00.003+08:00

Yum Brand stock surges
By BRUCE SCHREINER – 3 days ago
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Yum Brands Inc.'s stock surged Thursday as the operator of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC laid out ambitious plans for overseas expansion and offered an upbeat outlook for its U.S. business despite a sluggish first quarter.

The company reported Wednesday that its first-quarter profit fell 14 percent despite continued strong performance in China, where the fast-food operator opened 98 restaurants in the period. The results beat profit projections from analysts polled by Thomson Reuters.

In the United States, Yum overcame weak dinner sales at KFC and Pizza Hut — partly through cost-cutting and because commodity inflation eased — to post a 7 percent rise in operating profit.

"This is a slug-it-out year clearly," Yum Chairman and Chief Executive David C. Novak said in a conference call with industry analysts Thursday. "We're not happy with what's going on with our dinner business, which is Pizza Hut and KFC primarily. But I am very happy with the actions that we're taking to build these brands and make them more broadly appealing."

The company stuck to its prediction of 10 percent earnings-per-share growth for the year.

Yum's stock rose $2.43, or 7.6 percent, to end at $34.52 Thursday.
Novak said Yum's business in China, where the company has just over 3,100 restaurants and where KFC has become a dominant brand, will continue to grow, with 1,500 more restaurants opening there in the next three years.
"Yum is doing its part to stimulate the Chinese economy," he said.
Yum's chief financial officer, Rick Carucci said new restaurant openings in China are projected to yield high returns of about 30 percent.

"Trust me, as long as we continue to expect this type of return, we'll continue to rapidly expand in China," he said.

Larry Miller, a restaurant analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said the strategy makes sense.

"If I were them, I would be investing in that market, too," he said. "It's hard to say no to a billion Chinese consumers."

In its international division, which excludes China, Yum opened 145 restaurants in the quarter. Novak said aggressive expansion will continue there too and cited India as a key emerging market.

KFC's first-quarter sales growth exceeded 30 percent in its restaurants open at least a year in India, he said. Also, Yum plans to introduce Taco Bell there later in the year, he said.

"They're going for the emerging market growth, and they're going at it in a big way," Miller said in an interview. "They still have a lot of faith in kind of the pre-global meltdown economy; that things are going to look the same when we come out of it."

Yum predicted that its current quarter will be its "low point" for the year.
In the recession-weary U.S., value remains a key attraction for customers, and Novak acknowledged that presents "a challenge for us."

Pizza Hut is promoting its PANormous pizza offering for $10, and last year rolled out Pizza Mia as a permanent value offering. Novak said the brand is right strategically to expand its menu to include pastas. Yum also is expanding a side concept offered in some Pizza Huts, called WingStreet, that sells chicken wings.
Novak said KFC underperformed in the quarter as dinner sales slumped. He said the chicken chain's recently introduced value menu "improved our transactions, but we didn't get the overall sales lift that we would have liked" because of weaker dinner sales.

KFC is pinning hopes for a sales rebound on its recently introduced Kentucky Grilled Chicken, which the chain hopes will appeal to health-conscious customers looking for a nonfried option.

Taco Bell, which generates 60 percent of Yum's U.S. profits, remains a strong performer, though it's feeling pressure from value offerings by more competitors, the company said.

Still, Novak said he was pleased with the direction of the U.S. business.
"We expect each one of our brands to go into 2010 stronger," he said.
Miller said he expects Yum's U.S. business to be "modestly better" in six months.
The company's brands also include Long John Silver's and A&W All-American Food.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

HK response to swine flu: New York Times

2009-04-27T13:10:00.002+08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/27/world/asia/27kong.html

Remember a few months ago when a bunch of "healthy" kids got sick and died suddenly? Is anyone else thinking the same thing Spice 'n Slice is? This bug is already here.

Dr. Thomas Tsang, the controller of the Hong Kong government’s Center for Health Protection has yet to adequately explain those cases. In one case the flu was so severe a boy showed minor symptoms before a flight and then died en rout.

We wonder upon what grounds the NYT based the following:

"One legacy of SARS is that Hong Kong may now be better prepared for a flu pandemic than practically anywhere else in the world. Fearing that SARS might recur each winter, the city embarked on a building program to enlarge its capacity to isolate and treat those infected with communicable respiratory diseases.
The city has also expanded its flu research labs, already among the best in the world and leaders in tracking the H5N1 avian flu virus. The so-called bird flu virus, which kills an unusually high share of its victims, has periodically triggered fears over the past decade about a possible pandemic. It is different, though, from the H1N1 swine flu virus now causing illnesses in Mexico and the United States."

The NYT should know that in SAR as well as China you have to take what any government official says, Dr. or not, with a heavy pinch of salt. If our labs are so good why don't we know what killed those kids? We think swine flu is already here (and has been for some time now) and they are trying to avoid panic.....

From the NYT

I have eaten at this KFC..... OMG! I fully recognize the girl.....

2009-04-26T17:53:00.003+08:00

I live in Yuen Long....OMG....

From Mop:

To many Hong Kong people, KFC is considered delicious, but can you imagine that this fried chicken might have been taken from the garbage?

Recently, a Yuen Long Plaza [元朗广场] deliveryman created a stir when he said that this restaurant’s staff, in order to get off work on time, often turn off the ovens before the restaurant closes and throw away the unsold food. During this time, if a customer comes in to buy something or make an order, this restaurant’s staff pick out thrown-away food from the garbage and give it to customers to eat. Moreover, to save money, this restaurant’s manager also allows the staff to do this.

This deliveryman also used his mobile phone to take pictures of the staff looking for food in the garbage to give to customers to eat.
According to insiders’ analysis, this kind of result is related to Kentucky Fried Chicken’s management evaluation model.

More Swine Swill..... If this hits Asia It will be huge.....

2009-04-26T17:39:00.001+08:00

CDC Swine Flu Video: good info

2009-04-26T17:30:00.000+08:00

aljazeera: "HSBC shares like children, they keep multiplying"

2009-04-26T17:10:00.002+08:00

McD's kicking Starbucks shamelessly........

2009-04-26T16:07:00.001+08:00

Shanghai Whisky Live May 8 - 9

2009-04-26T15:05:00.006+08:00

File under the most heavily sponsored event in Shanghai this spring.
It's also the first time I've seen Whisky getting the sponsorship, not giving it in China.

The list of peeps jumping on the Whisky Wagon run from TALK and Shanghai Expat to Element Fresh. So, expect crowds.

The event line-up looks fantastic with tastings, classes and all sorts extended whisky tie ins. Spice 'n Slice wishes it could be there.

All info and pics posted here from the official website for Whisky Live
For more info go to: http://www.whiskylivechina.com/about.html

11th Ann. China Franchise Expo in Beijing May 8 - 10

2009-04-26T13:26:00.012+08:00

In BJ week after next? You might want to catch this event, if only to see if what Xinhua has been saying holds true.

BJ has stuck firmly to the line that the downturn hasn't affected the franchising industry very much. This is the world's largest franchise convention. Attendance will say a lot. Spice 'n Slice hopes there will be people there polling the attendees.

Show addendance over the years tells the real China business story:
Last year there were over 400 booths and 22,000 visitors (down from 26,000 in 2007). The image bellow speaks to the real situation in China. Spice 'n Slice maintains that the real start of the economic downturn was in early 2005. Nearly every sector of the the food industry show a drop from 2005 to 2006. The numbers for this convention show it clearly..... One factor in the huge drop was governmental. In 2005 the central government increased taxes and tariffs products coming into the country that serviced franchises. We can't forget as well that the end of 2005 was the first big wave of "officially non-existent" inflation in the average cost of daily necessities.

Show Info

Show Date:
May 8-10, 2009
Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Show Hours
09:00 am -16:30 pm

Show Venue:
China World Trade Center
No.1, Juanguomenwai Dajie,
Chaoyang District,
Beijing 100004, China
www.cwtc.com.cn

Admission Charge:
Normal Ticket:?? RMB 50
Online Pre-sale:? RMB30

all info taken from http://www.chinafranchiseexpo.com/en/Default.asp

New COO at Papa Johns

2009-04-24T13:50:00.007+08:00

Papa John's taps Joseph Jude Thompson as president and chief operating officer
.

He has absolutely no food and beverage background.... is this a smart move? His experience is based in the insurance industry..... we'll see. The appointment might signal that Papa John's feels it needs to focus on it's internal operations and expansion is going to take a back seat...

Click on the link above to read the full article. Slice 'n Spice smells disaster. In this market, with so many great people looking for jobs they can't find someone who has a least a few years in F&B?

Slice 'n Spice thinks it important that the people running business have at least some industry related experience. Why can't they pick up a seasoned guy like David Goronkin?

related links:
http://www.wellpoint.com/ (the insurance company he previously lead)
Businesswire news line (where we got the photo)
Papa John's site

Industry Veteran David Goronkin Joins Bennigan's as President & CEO

2009-04-24T12:17:00.008+08:00

From PR Newswire (click for full article)

The scoup:

Bennigan's is a vitage American brand of taverns. Heavilly centered on the east coast of the US until the '90. Expansion was very fast. They have locations all over the states and in more than a dozen countries. They have been particulary successfull in South Korea where they have more than 30 locations (almost as many as they have in the states).

Special note: They are doing well in places not traditionally known for liquor sales like Jordan and Brahim.

No China properties yet!

Spice 'n Slice has contaced them regarding China expansion plans.

After their quick expansion the company faultered. Just last year it looked like bankrupsy across the board. Vince Runco a CEO with TR Global was hired as a consultant and brought the company back from the brink of destruction. Under Runco they've settled most pending brankruptsy issues and even managed to open several new international properties.

Now industry big wig David Goronkin will step in as CEO. He's a director of the National Restaurant Association! Spice 'n Slice thinks the brand is in good hands. We look forward to them doing China market visits.....

bellow is excerpted directly from the article:

Throughout his career Mr. Goronkin has led several organizations through significant change and brand repositioning efforts leading to successful growth. Most recently he served as CEO, President and a director at Redstone American Grill, Inc., owner of several high-volume full-service restaurants.

Mr. Goronkin previously spent more than four years as President & CEO of Famous Dave's of America, the 170-unit, publicly-traded casual barbecue chain. Prior to joining Famous Dave's, he was Chief Operating Officer at Buffets, Inc., operator of the HomeTown Buffet and Old Country Buffet chains. He was an executive with the company for nearly 10 years and also served on its board of directors.

MOF - My Izakaya doing really well in Singapore

2009-04-23T17:11:00.006+08:00

http://www.ministryoffood.com.sg/

Great brand doing well in Sing... Spice 'n Slice thinks then need to be in HK..... Let's get them here!!!! Check out their web site...

Lots of great posting about this company... Spice 'n Slice looks forward to possibly doing an interview with the brand owner in the near future!!! we'll keep you posted.

DeLuca Still Waiting for Control of Subway Ad Fund

2009-04-23T15:46:00.003+08:00

http://www.bluemaumau.org/7193/deluca_still_waiting_control_subway_ad_fund

Very interesting read on a franchise owners struggle to modify their contract with Subway and gain more control over the advertising fund.

The Insect King

2009-04-22T23:15:00.007+08:00

There's no love loss between Spice 'n Slice and the fork tonged snake that is Jackie Chan. His comments this week about Chinese people not deserving the freedoms he has had in his own life are yet just another reason to question the viability of his restaurant brands.

Just how much damage will this most recent stream of public stupidity cause his restaurants? We'll be very interested to watch and see.

One thing he has going for him is the guanxi he's gained from being such a Beijing butt kisser. Mainland media have been very hands off and have largely have not reported on the insulting comments.

As of last year his popularity in the US was already waining. The property referenced bellow was hugely expensive. We're thinking a bunch of people lost some serious green backs because Hawaiians don't really care to have an "I ate at Jackie's and didn't get kicked" t-shirt.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2007/Jul/02/br/br0482196537.html

Jackie Chan's Ala Moana restaurant abruptly closes

Advertiser Staff and News Services

HONOLULU — Jackie Chan's restaurant in Honolulu, the action star's first eatery in the U.S., abruptly closed its doors Sunday.

Jackie's Kitchen, located in Hawai'i's largest shopping center, opened in December 2003.

A spokesman for the Chan-themed restaurant issued a short statement, stating that the company is providing employment assistance for the staff and finalizing closing details.

Chan has dozens of restaurants under various concepts across Asia, but the Hawai'i outlet was his first in the United States.

Jackie's Kitchen at Ala Moana was a full-service, casual-dining restaurant with 152 seats including the bar, which featured trick-performing bartenders. A gift shop sold Jackie Chan merchandise and restaurant souvenirs. The restaurant was on level three of Ala Moana next to Bubba Gump's, California Pizza Kitchen and Mai Tai Bar and Grill.

Chef Tak at the 4 Seasons becomes the only Chinese chef to recieve 3 stars

2009-04-22T20:41:00.002+08:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5274209.ece

copied from the TIMES ONLINE

Chinese chef is first to win Michelin three stars

(Ym Yik)

Chan Yan Tak. He has impressed diners with his steamed lobster

Jane Macartney in Beijing

A chef who began his apprenticeship when he was 15, has become the first Chinese cook in the world to be awarded three Michelin stars, winning the ultimate culinary accolade for dishes such as steamed lobster and scallop dumplings.

Chan Yan Tak, known as Chef Tak, won the only three-star rating for a Hong Kong restaurant in the inaugural Michelin Guide to restaurants and hotels in the former British colony and Macau.

The inspectors chose the Lung King Heen (View of the Dragon) Cantonese restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel for its highest award.

Chef Tak, who admits only to being in his 50s, was lured out of retirement three years ago by the Four Seasons to start the restaurant. “Excited, shocked and happy for my team”, was his immediate reaction to the recognition by the French bible of gastronomy.

Michelin inspectors, dining undercover, ate 12 times at Chef Tak’s tables in the past year as they visited 251 restaurants selected for a place in the food guide.

Jean-Luc Naret, the director of the guides, said that they had been tracking the career of the chef closely. “We have followed him for a few years, actually for ten years . . . He is the first Chinese chef to get three stars,” he said.

Of the 12 Michelin inspectors who compiled the guide, one was from Hong Kong and another was from mainland China, to help to gain a better understanding of the local cuisine. Mr Naret dismissed suggestions that the mainly Western backgrounds of the judges could prevent them from inspecting Asian cooking. “You do not have to be French to understand French cuisine, you do not have to be Chinese to understand Chinese cuisine,” he said.

Chef Tak first started cooking in the teeming Wan Chai district. He brought fame to the Regent Hotel in the city, which is renowned for its Chinese cooking, and he is best known among locals for his dim sum – an array of delicately flavoured steamed and fried snack-sized dishes served at lunchtime with endless pots of tea.

The full menu at Lung King Heen has 133 dishes on offer before a diner even reaches pudding.

The chef’s signature dishes, however, are his lobster and scallop dumplings and steamed Shanghainese pork dumplings with crab meat.

Nicola Chilton, a spokeswoman for the Four Seasons Hotel, said “The lobster and scallop dumplings are incredibly popular. Everyone orders these.”

The favourite dish of Chef Tak, however, is more simple: steamed fish with soy sauce.

Michelin awarded 40 stars in Hong Kong and Macau – modest compared with the 227 it gave when it started its first Asian edition with a guide to Tokyo last year.

It is hoping to sell 100,000 copies of the new guide. In the first few weeks after Tokyo became the city with the most stars in the world, 300,000 copies were sold.

The new guide includes 30 styles of cuisine and brings to 24 the total stars for Joël Robuchon, with three for the Robuchon a Galera restaurant in the Grand Lisboa casino resort in Macau and two for L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon restaurant in Hong Kong.

Mr Naret said: “When we launch a new guide in a city or country, it’s because the gastronomic scene . . . is interesting, diverse and rich.”

On the menu

Baked stuffed crab shell with onions and fresh crab meat
Hot and sour shark-fin soup
Simmered king prawn in champagne sauce with gold leaf
Braised whole fresh abalone in supreme oyster sauce
Sweetened almond cream with glutinous rice dumplings

Sources: fourseasons.com; taasty.com

Swire hotels expand in Hong Kong this Oct

2009-04-22T20:24:00.001+08:00

http://www.chinahospitalitynews.com/en/2009/04/21/11572-swire-hotels-to-open-new-hotel-in-hong-kong/

Following the successful launch of its first hotel, The Opposite House in Beijing, Swire Hotels is to unveil its second hotel, The Upper House, in Hong Kong this October.

The hotel will be located within Pacific Place in Admiralty — an integrated commercial, retail, and hospitality complex on Hong Kong island.

The hotel's 117 rooms, all featuring scenic harbour or island views, including 21 suites and 2 penthouses, are all at least 70 square meters in area and are claimed to be the largest in Hong Kong. The bathrooms which are over 30 square meters are framed with panoramic windows, come with walk-in rain showers, dressing areas and deep soaking baths.

Cafe Gray Deluxe, a 21st century 'grand cafe' located on the 49th floor overlooking Victoria Harbour, features a 14 meter long open kitchen and an equally long bar.

For outdoor entertaining there is lawn on the sixth floor and a sky lounge on the 49th floor.

The name, 'The Upper House', is derived from the design philosophy of an upward journey from Queensway towards Pacific Place.

The Upper House is designed by Hong Kong architect Andre Fu of AFSO with the use of natural materials, distinctive sculptures, and original artwork. The contemporary Oriental design is said to echo an understated feeling of residential calmness.

"Our goal is to create a highly individualized small hotel with a dynamic and busy restaurant, and to help in showcasing the revitalized Pacific Place," said Brian Williams, managing director of Swire Hotels.

Article with very interesting HK data (red)

2009-04-22T20:14:00.002+08:00

http://www.gourmetretailer.com/gourmetretailer/content_display/news/e3icbbfbd34476c89901d93a8413227ea49

Eating Out Around the World

April 21, 2009

What are consumers looking for when dining out? These days, something closer to home, according to a new report: "Global Diners Want Familiar Foods and Fair Prices" from The Nielsen Company. The report, based on a Nielsen survey, found that when choosing a restaurant, more than a quarter (27 percent) of global consumers prefer their local cuisine over international fare.

Report author Jonathan Banks, director retail insights, Nielsen Europe, cites a Nielsen global survey of Internet users in 52 markets across Europe, Asia Pacific, the Americas and the Middle East, which also revealed that, globally, reasonably priced food is consumers' second most important consideration (24 percent), though diners in Japan, Estonia, The Netherlands, Portugal, the Philippines, Belgium, Malaysia and Italy say that prices are actually the most important factor in their restaurant choice.

Value and Variety
Both cuisine and reasonable prices far outrank other primary considerations such as a convenient location (10 percent), healthy food options (6 percent), décor and ambiance (2 percent), recommendations from friends (2 percent), ample parking (1 percent), and Internet reviews (0 percent) when choosing a restaurant. Interestingly, only 2 percent of respondents choose a restaurant primarily because they don't have time to prepare a meal at home, and globally, no respondents select restaurants because they're considered the latest "in" place.

Food Favorites
Chinese and Italian food -- perennial international favorites -- are close runners-up to local cuisine, with 26 percent and 17 percent of the global respondents choosing them as their second favorite choice. Ironically, while 34 percent of Chinese respondents prefer their local cuisine as their first choice for dining out, 56 percent say that Chinese cuisine is their second most favorite. And Australians and Singaporeans prefer Chinese food even over their local fare. In Hong Kong, consumers' first preference is for Japanese cuisine (42 percent), and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the preferred cuisine is Indian (34 percent). The preferences in Singapore and UAE are likely driven by ethnicity, as Singapore's population is 75 percent Chinese and UAE is nearly 50 percent South Asian. The most patriotic restaurant-goers are the Italians, with 91 percent saying they prefer their local cuisine, followed by consumers in Turkey (82 percent) and India (81 percent).

Frequency Findings
The survey revealed two schools of thought on eating out: While the majority of global consumers (44 percent) dine out between one and three times per week, as many as 38 percent only enjoy a meal out-of-home once a month or less. Consumers in the Asia Pacific markets dine out more frequently than consumers in other regions, particularly in Hong Kong, where nearly one-third (31 percent) say they eat at restaurants every day or more than once a day. In contrast, Europeans are the least likely to venture out for a meal -- more than half (56 percent) say they dine in restaurants at most once a month and 7 percent say they never eat out. The Dutch are most likely to eat out less than once a month at 57 percent.

The frequency of out-of-home dining is reflective of local cultures. Many Asian countries emphasize out-of-home socializing, but Europeans are more likely to share a meal around the family table. The survey findings also provide insight into where the global financial meltdown has been felt most acutely, with more Europeans tightening their belts and curbing out-of-home entertainment. It is interesting to note, however, that only 1 percent of Europeans choose a restaurant because of special offers or promotions, versus 4 percent of North Americans who make that a primary or secondary consideration.

Dining Decisions
Dinner is by far the most popular out-of-home meal, with approximately 60 percent of global consumers saying they most commonly go out for the evening meal. This is consistent across most of the world's regions with the exception of Latin America, where the midday meal is culturally considered the main meal of the day, and 73 percent of respondents go to restaurants for lunch.

More than one-third (37 percent) of the world's consumers prefer to eat out on Saturday, followed by 31 percent who eat out on evenings during the Monday-through-Thursday week. More than half (55 percent) are most likely to enjoy a restaurant meal with family and friends -- though only 5 percent say that family members' preferences are the primary or secondary consideration for choosing a restaurant. Just over one-quarter of consumers (27 percent) dine out most often with their partners, 9 percent with work colleagues and 7 percent choose to dine out alone.

Cultural differences are reflected in the choice of companions for a restaurant meal. While only 4 percent of Latin Americans say they most often dine out with their partner, they are overwhelmingly more likely to go out with friends and family (69 percent), or work colleagues (14 percent). In contrast, 42 percent of Europeans are most likely to dine out with their partner, and only 4 percent of North Americans are most likely to go to restaurants with colleagues from work.

Check, Please
With nearly half the world's consumers eating out at restaurants several times a week, restaurateurs should be reassured that dining out remains an affordable luxury and preferred entertainment option, despite recessionary times. The most certain route to ongoing success is well-prepared local cuisine offered with value and pricing in mind.

Ajisen (China) Holdings Limited Announces 2008 Annual Results

2009-04-22T20:08:00.000+08:00

Ajisen (China) Holdings Limited Announces 2008 Annual Results

Joseph Lau gets the McSlammer

2009-04-22T19:19:00.004+08:00

Copied and posted from CNN Money.com

UPDATE: McDonald's Former-Hong Kong Executive Convicted Of Bribery

April 15, 2009: 07:39 AM ET

(Adds comment from McDonald's that Lau's employment was terminated.)

HONG KONG -(Dow Jones)- A former local managing director of U.S. fast-food giant McDonald's Corp. (MCD) was convicted Wednesday of taking HK$2.5 million worth of illegal kickbacks, Hong Kong's antigraft agency said.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption said Joseph Lau, whom it described as managing director of McDonald's Restaurants (Hong Kong) Ltd., was found guilty in District Court of bribery and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Lau was placed into custody pending sentencing May 6, the ICAC said in a statement.

McDonald's said in a faxed statement that Lau's employment was terminated, without providing further details.

"McDonald's doesn't tolerate criminal wrongdoing, or breaches of its code of conduct for employees," Liam Jeory, McDonald's vice president for corporate relations, said in the statement.

The ICAC said in late 2007 it charged Lau with taking kickbacks from a Thai food company from 2005 to 2007, as a reward for recommending and approving it as the corn supplier to McDonald's restaurants in Hong Kong.

Lau joined the company in 1983 and was appointed managing director for McDonald's Hong Kong operations in June 2004, according to an earlier statement from McDonald's.

In Hong Kong, McDonald's operates more than 200 restaurants, according to its Web site.

-By Jeffrey Ng, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2802-7002; jeffrey.ng@dowjones.com

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
04-15-09 0739ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Weight watching consumers in wan cai can now get DRESSED

2009-04-22T18:00:00.004+08:00

Dressed, a brilliant "salad as meal" concept has opened a new location in Wan Cai. 202 Queen's road east, right next to our fav. Fat Burger.

Choose what you want and have it tossed! Great. A bit pricey but worth it.

http://www.dressedsalads.com.hk

Spice 'n Slice does wonder if the close proximity of a TASTE will affect their sales volume. Will be interesting to watch... TASTE sells a mean array of salads for a little bit less.

Texas Roadhouse has China on it's mind

2009-04-22T17:07:00.005+08:00

Word is out that Southern BBQ powerhouse Texas Roadhouse is meeting with potential partners in Hong Kong. Interested in a franchise? Spice 'n Slice thinks it gonna be a huge hit with concept friendly, rib luv'n China consumers.

http://www.texasroadhouse.com/home.php

Ireland's potato Kicking "A" in prince edward and Causewaybay!

2009-04-22T16:45:00.006+08:00

http://www.irelandspotato.com/

If you're in prince edward or causway bay and want a grease satisfying snack hit up Ireland's Potato (and they have BEER!!) call them at 21510889 for directions (it's a bit hard to find)

2009-04-22T16:05:00.000+08:00

Eddi-Bites

McMinnville Farmers Market

Six Flags in Trouble

FATHER’S DAY AT BISTRO MAISON, McMinnville OR

Starbucks gives customers a double

A Baghlan cheese project in Afganistan

Wednesday's Wines, McMinnville Oregon

The View Point Inn, Corbett, Oregon

About The View Point Inn

Attempt to delay smoking ban fails

As easy as ABC : American-born Chinese are on a roll in the mainland's dining scene

HOFEX Friday 2009

HOFEX 2009 HONG KONG DAY 1 PICS

Food Styling with Ed Gowans

Carl Warner: Food Landscapes

Carl Warner: Festival Walk, info plates

Carl Warner: Food landscapes, discussing the pictures

Carl Warner Photos at Festival Walk: the execution of the exhibition

Caramba: Discovery Bay, Hong Kong; an Eclipse concept

First Confirmed Swine Flu Case in HK

Spice 'n Slice Stock Report April 30

Ticker Shock: Four Reasons Why Starbucks Could Give You a Buzz

Spice 'n Slice Daily Stock Rpt

Wynn Macau

Sen - Ryo at Elements in Hong Kong

A Quiet Moment in the MGM: Macau

More Patisserie Pics From the MGM: Macau

Bust'n out the bresaola at the MGM Patisserie: Macau

Biz Peeps to watch: Joseph Constanty

Info search regarding Asian food brands in the US

Chef instructor Charles F. Drabkin on the state of culinary education

why the heck Helsinki?

Quickie: Sands Macao may be on the block for 1.3 bil

Yum! Brands Inc. Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

Other Articles on YUM

YUM group kicks "A"

HK response to swine flu: New York Times

I have eaten at this KFC..... OMG! I fully recognize the girl.....

More Swine Swill..... If this hits Asia It will be huge.....

CDC Swine Flu Video: good info

aljazeera: "HSBC shares like children, they keep multiplying"

McD's kicking Starbucks shamelessly........

Shanghai Whisky Live May 8 - 9

11th Ann. China Franchise Expo in Beijing May 8 - 10

Show Info

New COO at Papa Johns

Industry Veteran David Goronkin Joins Bennigan's as President & CEO

MOF - My Izakaya doing really well in Singapore

DeLuca Still Waiting for Control of Subway Ad Fund

The Insect King

Chef Tak at the 4 Seasons becomes the only Chinese chef to recieve 3 stars

Chinese chef is first to win Michelin three stars

Swire hotels expand in Hong Kong this Oct

Article with very interesting HK data (red)

Eating Out Around the World

Ajisen (China) Holdings Limited Announces 2008 Annual Results

Joseph Lau gets the McSlammer

Weight watching consumers in wan cai can now get DRESSED

Texas Roadhouse has China on it's mind

Ireland's potato Kicking "A" in prince edward and Causewaybay!