Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from Larry Miller with RBC Capital Markets.
Larry Miller - RBC Capital Markets
Nice job in a really tough environment. I think you’ve got a lot to be proud of there. Can I ask a couple of questions and then I’ll hop off the line? On the beef contract, what was the rate that you guys ended up locking in on and what can we expect for 2008? And as you sit here today and you are thinking about what beef might be for 2009, is there going to be an opportunity first of all in the contract to -- I’ve been hearing a lot of folks aren’t offering contracts. And as you think about maybe your non-beef exposure for next year, what -- is there any areas of opportunity there that you might be able to kind of offset any kind of inflation that you might see in 2009? Thanks.
G. J. Hart
Firstly, our beef, our 25% that we locked in recently, I will tell you is a little bit more than what that portion of the floating beef in the first half but less than our contract price that we had on the balance of it, somewhere in between and that’s about as far as we want to go with that.
And in terms of 2009, on all proteins, we are in the midst of discussions that we’ll be having over the next several weeks with our vendor partners and we’ll have a much better sense of where we are going into 2009. I think it’s fair to say that it’s uncertain right now for our vendor partners as well as us. I don’t know that anyone’s told us at this point they are not offering contracts and we’ve had a few discussions already. So I think it’s uncertain and really there’s not a lot more I can add until I have these meetings.
Larry Miller - RBC Capital Markets
Okay, thanks. If I might ask just two more quick ones; Scott, can you talk about the return on capital on those three groups of stores? What is the return on capital, the comp base? What’s the return on capital of that non-comp base, and then the stores that were less than nine months?
And then historically you’ve told us a little bit about monthly comparisons that you have. What does Q3 of last year look like on a monthly basis? Thanks very much.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
