Organic growth investments expected to accelerate financial performance in late fiscal 2026 and into fiscal 2027 Company provides update on third and fourth quarter fiscal 2024 LEBANON, Tenn., May 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. ("Cracker Barrel" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: CBRL) today provided an update on its strategic transformation plan and announced changes to its capital allocation. Highlights The Company's strategic transformation plan is anchored on three overarching business imperatives: driving relevancy, delivering food and an experience guests love, and growing profitability. To realize these imperatives, the Company has developed a comprehensive strategy focused on refining the brand, optimizing the menu, evolving the store and guest experience, winning in digital and off-premise, and elevating the employee experience. In conjunction with this plan, the Company is modifying its capital allocation to support increased investment in the business to drive organic growth. As part of this shift to increase investment in the business, the Company has reduced its quarterly dividend to $0.25 per share. The Company provided a long-term outlook and expects fiscal 2027 sales of approximately $3.8 billion to $3.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA1 of approximately $375 million to $425 million. The Company anticipates adjusted EBITDA1 in fiscal 2025 will be relatively in line with, or slightly lower than, fiscal 2024 results and will then improve in the second half of fiscal 2026 and further accelerate in fiscal 2027. The Company expects its third and fourth quarter fiscal 2024 financial results will be below its previous expectations, primarily due to weaker than anticipated traffic. Cracker Barrel President and Chief Executive Officer Julie Masino commented: "I am excited about our strategic transformation plans to drive relevancy, deliver food and experiences guests love, and grow profitability. Cracker Barrel is an iconic brand with an exceptionally strong foundation, and I firmly believe our plans will allow us to capitalize on our strengths and deliver long-term success. Executing this strategy will require increased investment in our business, and we have reduced our dividend so that we can allocate capital to generate organic growth and drive meaningful value creation over time. Our Board, our management, and our teams are excited about our plans and are already hard at work to make them a reality."  Strategic Transformation PlanThe Company's strategy is built on five pillars: Refining the brand: evolving the brand across all touchpoints. The Company has engaged a leading branding agency to refine and strengthen positioning to delight existing and new guests. Enhancing the menu: introducing menu innovation focused on craveability and traffic drivers, streamlining processes to improve execution, and optimizing strategic pricing to protect value and improve profitability. Evolving the store and guest experience: delivering an exceptional guest experience through operational excellence and improved store design and atmosphere. The Company is in the process of testing remodel prototypes and expects to complete 25-30 remodels in fiscal 2025. Winning in digital and off-premise: growing the off-premise business and leveraging technology such as Cracker Barrel Rewards. The Company continues to leverage guest data to better understand consumer behavior and identify ways to drive frequency and engagement. Elevating the employee experience: upgrading training and development programs and tools and simplifying job roles and utilizing technology to improve the employee experience. Capital Allocation Update & Quarterly Dividend DeclarationThe Company's Board of Directors is committed to a balanced capital allocation approach focused on profitable growth. Investing in the business continues to be the top priority followed by returning cash to shareholders through a regular quarterly dividend and share repurchases.  In conjunction with its strategic transformation plan, the Board of Directors is modifying the Company's capital allocation to increase investments in the business to drive organic growth and reducing the quarterly dividend to a more sustainable level. Specifically, the Company announced its Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share on the Company's common stock. The quarterly dividend is payable on August 6, 2024 to shareholders of record as of July 19, 2024. The Company is maintaining its current share repurchase authorization that has $138 million of remaining availability. OutlookThe Company provided the following outlook: Fiscal 2025