Reports per 100 Stores

Our "Reports per 100 Stores" metric is a fundamental measure in our food safety benchmarking system. It provides a straightforward way to compare food poisoning incident rates across restaurant chains of different sizes.

How We Calculate It

1. Determine Total US Store Count

   • We include both company-owned and franchised locations (for those brands that franchise) in the United States.

   • For public companies, we source this data from their annual 10-K reports.

   • If the 10-K doesn't provide a direct total, we calculate it by adding up relevant numbers provided.

   • For private companies or when 10-K data is incomplete, we conduct thorough research to find reliable store count estimates.

   Example: The Texas Roadhouse 10-K does not explicitly state the total U.S. store count for both company-owned and franchised locations. Instead, it provides separate counts for U.S. company-owned, U.S. franchised, international company-owned, and international franchised stores. Therefore, we combined these figures to derive the total U.S. store count from the 10-K data.

2. Count Total Reports

   • We tally the total number of US food poisoning reports associated with the brand for the year.

3. Calculate the Metric

   The formula looks like this:

   Reports per 100 Stores = (Number of Reports / Total US Stores) × 100

This gives us the number of reports per 100 stores, allowing for easy comparison across brands.

Why This Metric Matters

This metric is crucial because it provides a size-independent measure of food safety performance, enabling fair comparisons between small regional players and national giants. It also serves as an operational insight into how well a company manages food safety across its entire network of stores. Lower numbers suggest more consistent and effective practices, while higher numbers could indicate areas needing improvement. Additionally, it acts as a scalability indicator, showing whether a chain is maintaining its food safety standards as it grows. While valuable, this metric doesn't account for differences in store sizes or customer volumes. Therefore, we use it alongside other metrics, "Reports per $1M Revenue" and "Persons Reported Sick per 100k Customers," to provide a more comprehensive view of a restaurant's food safety performance.