Rick Cardenas: Yes, Andrew. It wasn’t a huge impact for early access, but it was something that delighted our eClub users, right. So, they got something that no one else can get. And so, we’ll continue to find ways to talk to them, to give them benefits of being part of the eClub without necessarily having to discount. And so, that’s what we continue to look at. And that was the — one of the first tries at it. We were encouraged by the results there, but we’ll continue to look for other ways to use that eClub.
Andrew Charles: Great. And then, Raj, just curious, with the inflation guidance, how does that break down between COGS and labor as we think about the back half of the year?
Raj Vennam: Yes. I’d say on the COGS front, as we said, we’re basically looking at 2% for the full year approximately, which means back half is closer to 3%, 2.5% to 3%, Q1 being a little bit lower, Q4 being the highest in terms of food inflation. Again, it’s a function of wrap on contracts and all that stuff. Not necessarily saying the absolute prices are going up, it’s just the fact that what we’re wrapping on year-over-year. From a labor perspective, our annual is around 5%. As you saw, from first quarter to second quarter we saw a slight moderation of about 50 basis points in total labor inflation. We are not projecting significant further moderation, but it’s — to the extent there is some that would be — we’d welcome that, but at this point we’re assuming it’s closer to that 5% for the back half for labor.
Andrew Charles: Great. Thank you very much.
Operator: Thank you. Next question today is coming from Brian Harbour from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now live.
Brian Harbour: Yes. Thank you. Good morning, guys. Raj, just on your comment about maybe a little bit lower check versus what you’d previously expected, is that specific to any brand? Is it more than non-Olive Garden brands or is it something you’re seeing in Olive Garden as well?
Raj Vennam: Yes. Look, I think, we’ve talked about it’s kind of continuation of what we saw a little bit in the first quarter where we talked about, at our casual brands, we’re seeing about 50 basis points of negative mix in general and mostly driven by alcohol. So, when you think about check growth in the mid-single digits, 50 basis points is not a huge — is not as big as it used to be. It would be — in a normal environment, when you’re talking about a 2% check growth, we would say, oh, 50 is a big deal, but when you’re talking about closer to mid-single digit check growth, 50 basis points is not as big, so from that perspective. But, also, as I’ve said earlier, the bigger drag is from Fine Dining, which, as we get into Q4, should abate.
But, right now, that’s another factor that we didn’t necessarily anticipate the level of check mix going into the fiscal year. But traffic is — again, as I said, we focus more on what’s happening with traffic. And to the extent we can say six months into the year that our traffic is similar to the levels we thought at the beginning of the year, that’s a great place to be.
Brian Harbour: Okay. Yes, it makes sense. And just a question on the food cost side as well. Were there any specific items that have kind of come in more favorable than you expected, or is there also maybe just kind of some scale benefits that you’ve been able to lean to recently?
Raj Vennam: Yes. I think, as I said in my remarks, pretty much all categories except beef came in a little bit better than we thought. We are — we did further up, just negotiate a contract for chicken that now we’re locked in for the rest of the year basically at 90%, and that’s going to be low single digit inflation for the back half, which is something we can deal with. And from other items, seafood continues to be deflationary. And then produce was a little bit better than we thought. Going into the year, we thought there was going to be some challenges with produce based on just some of the contracts we had, but our team was able to go back to our partners and negotiate given the environment and the market, and that was favorable to us from what we thought six months ago or three months ago.
Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Jeffrey Bernstein from Barclays. Your line is now live.
Jeffrey Bernstein: Great. Thank you very much. Rick, I think you mentioned to an earlier question that there was no change in your second half promotional plans. Things seem to be going as expected. I’m just wondering if you could talk about the broader competitive behavior across casual dining. I think, there are some that are incrementally concerned of an uptick in promotions and discounting to drive traffic, kind of in conjunction with the industry, maybe seeing some softening sales trends, especially if commodities continue to ease. So, can you just talk about, again, beyond just your plans, what you’re seeing across broader casual dining in terms of that outlook? And then I had one follow up.
Rick Cardenas: Jeff, we’re seeing what you see, an increase in television advertising, sometimes at a discount. But we’re, as I said, focused on profitable sales growth. Even with the increase in competitive activity we saw in Q2, we exceeded the industry by 410 basis points and that was — which was the same as second quarter. We exceeded by 410 in the second quarter, I’m sorry last quarter as well. This is on top of the 370 basis point gap we had last year. So, we feel like what we’re doing is working, even with competitive and a little bit of an increase in competitive intensity. By the way, we also improved our segment profit margin by 230 basis points from last year. And so, we’re going to stick to our strategy, providing everyday value to our guests, and continue to use our filters, which we’ve talked about many times, to evaluate any marketing activity.
