Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Steven Rees – J. P. Morgan.
Steven Rees – J. P. Morgan
I appreciate all the detail on the call on the negative mix and so far in the first quarter but I guess based on your promotion and prices strategy when should we expect this mix to reverse and be a positive contributor to same store sales growth in ’09?
Jeffrey W. Kip
Steve, essentially what we’re saying is we’re going to experience some of it during the first quarter, we stated that in our guidance and since we expect it to finish positive for the year we obviously expect it to turn and help in the second, third and fourth quarters.
Ronald M. Shaich
Steve, I’ll through something out at you as well. I think Panera probably is given more detail relative to its targets and what underlies them, its assumptions than I think at this point almost anybody out there. I think one of the risks in that is becoming tied to an individual metric, and now we’re discussing mix as a subset in comp and what data is going to change.
My suggestion to investors is hold us to our target, hold us to our EPS guidance and understand that these things will move around there will be ups, there will be downs. I think what we’re trying to indicate to you is that we at Panera feel completely comfortable with our guidance and our guidance for the first quarter and the year.
Jeffrey W. Kip
Just to add to that we have initiatives up against both transactions and mix. For us, we want to move both of them but they functionally work the same as part of comps.
Operator
Your next question comes from Sharon Zackfia – William Blair & Co, LLC.
Sharon Zackfia – William Blair & Co, LLC
I have a really quick question, have you thought about in any way hedging fuel given the pull back in diesel?
Jeffrey W. Kip
Yes, that’s something we’ve definitely thought about. It is an interesting discussion given the depth and liquidity in various markets and all of the accounting considerations probably a fun offline conversation when you’re feeling better. It’s something we look at and continue to look at to be honest. It could happen.
Operator
Our next question comes from John Glass – Morgan Stanley.
John Glass – Morgan Stanley
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