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Krispy Kreme (DNUT -0.95%)
Q1 2024 Earnings Call
May 09, 2024, 8:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Thanks for standing by. My name is Audra and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Krispy Kreme first quarter 2024 earnings call. I would now like to turn the call over to Alexandre Eldredge, Krispy Kreme investor relations.
Please go ahead.
Alexandre Eldredge -- Investor Relations
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Krispy Kreme's first quarter 2024 earnings call. Thank you for joining us today.
We will be referencing our earnings release and presentation during the call. These are available on our investor relations website at investors.krispykreme.com. Joining me on the call this morning are President and Chief Executive Officer Josh Charlesworth and Chief Financial Officer Jeremiah Ashukian. After prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.
Before we begin, I would like to remind you that this call contains forward looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities and Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements of expectations, future events, or future financial performance. Forward looking statements involve a number of inherent risks and uncertainties, and we caution investors that these risks could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31, 2023, and in the other filings we make from time to time with the SEC. Forward looking statements made today are only as of today.
The company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements except as may be required by law. Additionally, today's call will include certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation between non-GAAP financial measures and our closest comparable GAAP measures can be found in our first quarter 2024 earnings press release and Form 8-K filed today with the SEC and is also available at our investors.krispykreme.com website. Jeremiah will take us through our financial performance in a moment.
But first, here's Josh.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Jay. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. We had a strong first quarter.
Our strategy of making fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts more available around the world is working. Excitement for our fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts has never been higher. This photo is from our recently opened hot light theater in France, where Parisians lined up, some waiting overnight for their first ever hot original glazed doughnut fresh off the line. I was able to join our team members in Paris who are doing a great job spreading the joy that is Krispy Kreme not just to eat, but to share and give to others.
I wish to thank all our hard-working Krispy Kremers who get it done every day in now 39 countries around the world. Let me summarize today's key messages. First quarter organic revenue growth exceeded expectations at 6.7% year over year, with strong consumer demand and increased sales through digital channels fueling the results. We're increasing the pace of expansion as we make our fresh doughnuts more available around the world.
In Q1, we grew our points of access for Krispy Kreme fresh doughnuts by 19.4% year over year. We recently launched in France and we've announced our expansion into Brazil and Germany. In the US, we expect to add 15,000 points of access by the end of 2026. We're accelerating into more grocers and convenience stores.
We're excited about our national roll out with McDonald's, which is expected to add more than 12,000 new points of access alone. And we're reaffirming our guidance for the full year with 6 to 8% organic revenue growth expected to translate into adjusted EBITDA expansion of 8 to 11%. This reflects our intent to drive increasingly profitable growth from our hub and spoke operating model. Let's double click into each of these topics.
In the first quarter, engagement with the brand hit all-time highs. We had a record of 17.6 billion media impressions, nearly triple the same quarter last year. We launched planned initiatives like our St. Patrick's Day specialty doughnut collection and nimbly responded to spontaneous events such as the AT&T cellphone outage when we offered free doughnuts to those impacted.
Krispy Kreme's fresh and innovative doughnuts continue to resonate with our customers, especially on celebratory occasions. For example, our Valentine's Day specialty doughnut collection, available in 33 countries, led to our biggest sales day ever. Sales through digital channels, including for delivery and pick up, increased by 26% in the quarter, and we're excited about our recently launched new and improved loyalty program in the US, which has been very well received. So much so at one point.
Our app became the No. 1 download on the App Store last week, following our recent announcement to provide fresh doughnuts daily at McDonald's restaurants in the US. We have raised our long term global points of access goal from 75,000 to 100,000 to include the quick service restaurant opportunity. Our pace of expansion is also accelerating.
For the past three years, our global points of access grew by an average 19% per year to just over 14,000 by the end of 2023. Looking ahead, we expect fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts to be available in 33,000 points of access already by the end of 2026. We expect this growth to be driven by a combination of both existing and new customers, as well as new market expansion. For example, our nationwide roll out to McDonald's in the US gives us the opportunity to add distribution at other major customers such as Walmart, which still only lists us in about 25% of their stores and Target, with whom we have already agreed to expand our presence in new markets.
Our upcoming expansion into Germany, France and Brazil provide opportunities for thousands more points of access, and we expect to continue opening three to five new markets per year. Still, we do expect that the US will be the biggest driver of our profitable expansion. The recently announced agreement with McDonald's is expected to bring Krispy Kreme to more than 12,000 of their US restaurants by the end of 2026. We'll provide three of our most popular doughnuts fresh every day.
The iconic original glazed, chocolate iced with sprinkles, and chocolate ice cream filled. They will be available individually and in boxes of six. McDonald's is making them available in restaurant via drive through and on their mobile app. This follows a successful test of more than 160 McDonald's restaurants in the Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky, areas where consumer excitement and demand exceeded expectations.
We are partnering with McDonald's on a phased roll out through to the end of 2026 which we expect to begin before the end of this year. We anticipate nearly tripling our US points of access over the next three years from 7,775 today to more than 22,000 by the end of 2026. Much of the national roll out can happen using existing capacity, but we will also invest in our business to increase production hubs with slow. We expect to do this in a couple of ways.
We'll add approximately 30 new hubs, which will be optimized for the needs of our deliver fresh daily net network. We'll also convert about 20 existing hubs that do not currently have boats to make them able to fully support our DFD expansion. In all, we expect to have just over 200 hubs with boats by the end of 2026. This point of access expansion will allow increased utilization of our production hubs and increased distribution density on our delivery routes.
This means that we expect to get more points of access from the same production hub. Currently, our 154 hubs with spokes each serve on average 47 points of access in the US. We expect this to increase to over 100 by 2026. The impact is best explained with a couple of examples.
In Philadelphia, the productivity benefits of a more mature hub and boat model are expected to bring margin accretive growth. And in Minneapolis, where we don't currently sell doughnuts, we have the chance to be fully optimized from the start. We have a tremendous opportunity ahead of us, and I'm excited to partner with our teams to capitalize on this growth potential. Now, I will turn it over to Jeremiah to talk more about the US business expansion opportunity and our overall financial performance.
Jeremiah Ashukian -- Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Josh and Good Morning, everyone. I wanted to start by illustrating the anticipated financial impact of adding up to 15,000 points of access to our US business. What you see here on this chart is a range of increases on key financial metrics in the US business on an annualized basis. From a growth perspective, we expect that the addition of 14 to 15,000 points of access would result in roughly 340 to $430 million in annualized incremental revenue and 70 to $100 million of additional adjusted EBITDA, creating significant operating leverage on the existing business.
Now, I'll discuss our first quarter results. We outperform expectations as organic revenue grew 6.7% adjusted EBITDA increased 5.9% and we maintain positive operating leverage in the quarter, holding adjusted EBITDA margins steady at 13.1%. Turning to our US segment results, organic revenue increased 7.4% despite weather disruptions to the business in January. Additionally, we continue to see strong growth and availability as points of access increase 17.5%.
We have also improved the quality of points of access by adding another 96 secondary display cabinets to high traffic grocery doors. This takes us to 303 total grocery cabinets across the US. We have seen these add up to 70% incremental sales to a DFD door. The slight decline in average revenue per door was driven by a mixed impact of the customer base, with smaller grocery customers such as Save Mart being added in the quarter, while underlying door performance remains healthy, helped by the launch of minis in turn, this drove a 6.5% increase in sales per hub to $4.9 million up from $4.6 million in the prior year.
This improvement drove increased utilization across the network, which is a key factor in delivering 70 basis points of adjusted EBITDA margin expansion year over year to 14.4%. The international segment now reflects all of the equity owned international markets as we move the company owned Canadian and Japanese businesses into the international segment. From the market development segment, organic revenue grew 9.8% with all markets and growth driven by record points of access growth of nearly 24% alongside successful marketing activations. From an adjusted EBITDA up perspective, we also saw all markets expand margins in the quarter outside of the UK market, overall adjusted EBITDA increased 8.2% resulting in a margin decline of 50 basis points to 16.5%.
We have a holistic intervention plan in place for the UK and have rationalized parts of our manufacturing network to improve utilization similar to the US segment, average revenue per door was driven by a mix of customers as we continue to expand into the convenience channel including Oxxo in Mexico and Tesco Express in the UK, which naturally has a lower revenue per door. Market development is now solely comprised of our franchise businesses, both domestically in the US and internationally. Within the segment, organic revenue declined 14.1% which was driven by timing of equipment sales versus the prior year, adjusted EBITDA on the segment, expanded 900 basis points to 54.1% again largely linked to lower equipment sales, which are lower margin revenues. For the first quarter, we delivered $0.07 in adjusted earnings per share.
The higher depreciation and amortization in the quarter reflects the investments associated with the expansion of our hub and spoke network. The negative cash flow from operations in the first quarter reflected our strategy to reduce the use of vendor financing. This is now largely complete. We're still aiming to be cash flow positive in 2024.
We also continue to have the healthy balance sheet with access to liquidity to fuel our growth agenda. Today we are reaffirming our full year outlook. We have good momentum heading into the second quarter but are mindful of some consumer softness in the current market, which is impacting discretionary spend while investing in our US expansion, including start-up costs for the McDonald's national roll out, we expect to deliver positive operating leverage. Similarly, we anticipate incremental investments to open the new hubs Josh referenced earlier and expect to trend toward the high end of the range on capital expenditures in 2024.
We anticipate this to continue in 2025 and 2026 before trending toward 6% thereafter. As it relates to the second quarter of 2024, we expect to deliver net revenue growth of 6 to 8% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 8 to 10%. We will continue to closely monitor and adapt to changes in the market and uncertainty in the consumer environment and remain confident in our ability to drive operating leverage consistently throughout 2024. With that, I will turn it over to Josh for his closing remarks.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Jeremiah. In summary, we are expanding availability by adding high quality productive points of access driving, operating leverage through the efficiency of our operating model and maximizing capital return, both by leveraging existing capacity and making selective investments in geographies which have limited access to Krispy Kreme Today, all in I look forward to us building a bigger and better Krispy Kreme in the years ahead. Operator, let's now open it up to Q&A please.
Questions & Answers:
Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] We'll go first to Sara Senatore at Bank of America.
Sara Senatore -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Hi. This is Sara. Can you hear me?
Jeremiah Ashukian -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. We hear you Sara.
Sara Senatore -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
OK. Thank you. So I guess I wanted to -- you mentioned McDonald's, I guess I wanted to dive in there a little bit. I have a few questions.
So one is if you could just clarify what impact, if any you're including from that partnership either on top line or as I think about GNA, it's -- I think you've invested ahead of that, you know, ahead of that partnership rolling out how to think about that growth going forward or sort of the big upfront cost behind you, you know, or how long? How many quarters perhaps should we expect to see sort of outside GNA growth in ahead of revenue growth? So just the sort of broader view on the McDonald's partnership implications for your P&L.
Jeremiah Ashukian -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. I I'll take that, Sara, and thanks for the question. We are collaborating with McDonald's to build a detailed roll out plan and anticipate the launch to start in the tail end of 2024. So from a revenue impact, you know, we do expect that to be fairly minimal this year.
What I would say with respect to cost we are, as you mentioned, in the investment phase now and are incurring start up costs and SG&A and opex. We're not disclosing exactly how much we're spending on that, but we are pleased that we can reaffirm our guidance, assuming those costs are in our business, you know, beginning in Q1.
Sara Senatore -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Understood. OK. Thank you. And then, just the follow up question on that is I know some of the concerns, or some of the questions around McDonald's have to do with sort of overlap with your existing distribution, you know, points of access.
And can you maybe assuage some of those and talk about what, if anything, you saw during your test with respect to cannibalization. I know in the past, I think you said, you know, that that doesn't seem to be really an issue, because you're sort of under penetrated. But anything that that you saw regarding your existing POAs in Kentucky and what happened when you launched McDonald's?
Jeremiah Ashukian -- Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. I mean, we we've done a bit of work around the incremental of this, and we believe we expect to see strong incremental of around 85%. That's what you see in kind of the charts we presented this morning reflects that, which will be a mix of higher, incremental and brand-new markets, but obviously a little bit lower, incremental in in existing markets.
Sara Senatore -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
We'll go next to John Ivankoe at J.P. Morgan.
John Ivankoe -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Hi. Thank you. Two questions if I may. You know, at first, you know, as you begin, you know to kind of have you know plans for overall, you know, relatively national penetration.
You know, are you beginning to have conversations with taking you know various major, you know, grocery and other types of national accounts on a national basis? In other words, you know, as you begin to, you know, to have the capacity to go into McDonald's, do you expect it, you know, to have a number of different simultaneous agreements with other national type uh, you know, both larger and smaller format retailers?
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, John. Yeah, by distributing to almost every McDonald's in the country, this does indeed give us the opportunity to profitably add distribution with other major customers. Both existing customers that we are under penetrated in and indeed new ones. And I think that, you know, the conversations that we've had with them since the announcement have largely been positive because they can see that we're able to build out our operating model on a national scale and therefore serve them nationally. I mean, it's going to be really exciting to bring Krispy Kreme to Minneapolis, for example, the home of Target or to bring Kreme to Walmart's in Arkansas.
So, you know, these are things we haven't done up to now and we're really excited to do that. And so, yeah, the data that we shared today and our goal of getting to 15,000 points of access in the US by 2026 obviously includes expansion beyond McDonald's as a result.
John Ivankoe -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
You know, and it does remind me that -- actually have two more questions. You know, as you guys, you know, kind of think about the overall size of the doughnut market or sweet treat, tweet, treat market. I mean, you know, you obviously have, you know, a lot of, you know, interesting insights both at your you know, your current employer and also previous employers, you know, but how big of a prize do you think the US Krispy Kreme market really is? I mean, you know, you can obviously -- if you look at it as a percentage of doughnut sales, you could argue that you know, Krispy Kreme share gets to be very, very high, you know, kind of in the out years. But, you know, is the price something materially, bigger than doughnut sales? How are you defining the overall time at this point?
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, I think you know today we brought a really good insight on the incremental revenue we expect out to 2026. Jeremiah shared 340 to $430 million revenue reflecting 15,000 points of access goal. We actually following the announcement McDonald's that gave us insight on the QSR opportunity overall. We've continued to appreciate the opportunity to access these national accounts you referenced at the beginning of this discussion.
So we say we believe we can get about 30,000 points of access in the long run. Regarding the share market and what have you we're still actually a relatively small player with sharing the low teams in grocery stores today. And so, you know, there's plenty of upside for us because, you know, we are the best owner in the market. It's an awesome experience.
We're constantly innovating constantly bringing excitement to the brand, and we're fresh, fresh daily. It's a really unique positioning. So, yeah, absolutely. We wanna take share from those who aren't able to bring such an exciting brand and product to -- to the consumer.
John Ivankoe -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Understood and I apologize if I missed that. It was a little slightly delayed getting on. You know, did you address, you know, kind of the, you know, the current test and experience you know, with Ryder, you know, handling your last mile distribution. I think it's in DC and LA, you kind of positives and negatives? And I guess at this point, you know, what -- what would keep you, you know, to perhaps making that an overall, you know systemwide decision?
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
No, it's a good question. Actually, I was just up with the Krispy Kremers and the Ryder team in DC myself riding the routes. And what I could see was that, the service level and the quality of the doughnuts is being maintained which is the primary focus of the test right now. Make sure that those Krispy Kreme doughnuts show up in the way we would expect.
And the partnership with Ryder has been great so far. Really, we now, therefore need to move into more analysts -- analysis and understanding of what this could look like in terms of our economics and how it could support the roll out. We are looking to add another city to the test. And indeed, we're also talking to other providers.
It's really important that the doughnuts and the delivery show up as if it was Krispy Kreme, they're dedicated trucks the drivers are wearing Krispy Kreme uniforms and presenting themselves in a really positive way. And it and it looks really promising. But we'll provide updates, as we know more about the opportunity to extend that as we support the roll out nationally toward these 15,000 goals by 2026.
John Ivankoe -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Sounds good. Thank you.
Operator
We'll move next to Aisling Grueninger at Piper Sandler.
Aisling Grueninger -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Hi. Good morning, guys. You've mentioned in the past, you're focused around automating the doughnut production. Just wondering if you have any updates around this.
I know in the international segment some of your production facilities use automation. Just wondering about the opportunity this presents for the US market and just how this could help with the rollout of McDonald's?
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a great question. Good morning. You know, we continue to work on the opportunity to modernize the making and indeed the moving of doughnuts to the earlier question. There are transformational improvements we could make -- we can make and are making with automation.
It's still proportionately a relatively small percentage of the business that we're applying this to largely are non-consumer facing doughnut factories. We have a line -- fully automated line running in. Our Bronx facility, for example, in New York where we're topping and filling and even picking the doughnuts off the line automatically. But at this stage, you know, that's still work that's ongoing.
We're actually also finding ways to modernize production lines by, you know, improving yield and reducing waste by digitizing the lines and monitoring those variables in that way as well. So, you know, it is an opportunity. We definitely think that this is an area that can help us scale and help us be more efficient. But with the acceleration of points of access growth, you know, we also need to support capacity, expansion particularly across the US.
So we're being thoughtful how we bring in new technology as we also expand.
Aisling Grueninger -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Great. Thank you for the color. I'll pass it back.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
You bet. Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from Bill Chappell at Truist Securities.
Bill Chappell -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
Thanks. Good morning. In your comments you kind of talked about some recent softness around the category and kind of consumers pulling back. Just maybe a little more color on that.
I mean, it's not unique, but I think we've seen kind of slowing volumes throughout all of packaged food over the past few months. And just anything more you can talk about that and if you think there are any other things at work impacting that?
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Actually, Bill, although we're mindful of the consumer environment, we actually see the brand being really healthy with people looking to Krispy Kreme as an affordable sweet treat for those special celebratory occasions. We mentioned earlier Valentine's and being the biggest sales day in the history of- of the company. I mean, earlier this month even, in April, we saw tremendous engagement with our total solar eclipse doughnut. And so, you know, although we're mindful of the consumer environment, particularly on the international side, the brand is -- is really healthy, plenty of consumer engagement.
And I think it's because of the unique role that Krispy Kreme plays as an occasional sweet treat for special occasions and celebrations.
Bill Chappell -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
So -- I'm sorry. So you're not seeing any softness. I may have missed that comment, sorry.
Jeremiah Ashukian -- Chief Financial Officer
No, I think that the softness that we would have talked about would have been in January just due to weather in the United States, but not necessarily broader kind of consumer.
Bill Chappell -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
OK. And then, just to the McDonald's, you know -- I guess, two questions that I -- that I hear most often. One, trying to understand kind of the -- the level of commitment on McDonald's of and the franchisees down the road. I mean, you say you're going to, I think 12,000 out of 13,000 doors.
I mean, is there -- and you're obviously spending a lot of money behind it. Is there any way McDonald's can say a year, year and a half into this? You know, this isn't working or this doesn't work for certain franchises or, you know, in that changes that or is it full ahead? Everybody's fully committed to going to that that 12,000 by -- through 2026.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
No, McDonald's has been a great partner so far. We've really enjoyed the collaboration. The agreement, last one year after the last rollout in 2026 and of course can be renewed after that. So, you know, we've already announced our share partnership with McDonald's and and, you know, it is about rolling out through to the end of 2026 and the intent is more than 12,000 restaurants.
And that is the phased rollout plan that we're working on with -- with the McDonald's. You know, we don't expect it to start till the tail end of the year but it's really thoughtful. You know, we'll obviously naturally prioritize places where we at Krispy Kreme can provide availability faster. But the partnership is, is -- is going really great so far after what was obviously a great Kentucky test and very thorough test that demonstrated that consumer demand outstripped both theirs and our expectations.
Bill Chappell -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
Got it. And then, I'll squeeze one more in on the -- and this is kind of a follow up from the earlier one on the incrementality. I'm just trying to understand -- I understand how it maybe interacts with your stores, but, you know, how it does when there's a Dunkin store next by or a convenience store that sells doughnuts or stuff like that? I'm just trying to understand how it expands the overall doughnut market in the same way, kind of what your test showed from that standpoint.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, we know that we create buzz and demand when we come to a new market. We've seen that again and again. When it comes to existing markets, so obviously had a prolonged period of time with the Kentucky test to see the impact of that incrementality. But also bear in mind, we have many parts of the country where we already have good availability.
Take an Atlanta. Take areas of the Carolinas, places where they may even be in a town more of the other doughnut shops you reference, but they're not really doughnut shops. They're generally beverage focused, sandwich focused. We are the ones who offer a unique, awesome, fresh doughnut experience.
Minis for mum this week that constantly bringing excitement and headlines to the category. So, you know, that doesn't surprise us. But yeah, we done the analysis and the numbers that are -- the incremental that Jeremiah shared today was based off a very thoughtful analysis.
Bill Chappell -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
Great. Thanks for the color.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Andrew Wolf at C.L. King.
Andrew Wolf -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst
Thank you. I just had a couple follow ups. First on McDonald's. Do you expect the rollout, you know, just in terms of stores, you know, where it's rolled into overtime to be kind of linear or do you -- is there an exponential build or even a front end loaded build? I would think more exponential, but just sort of the timing, you know, between now and 2026.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I describe it as balanced. It's -- it's balanced around where we have availability today. Balanced around where we can bring on new capacity quickly. And then, of course there are parts of the country where -- where you know our development pipeline means it's going to take a little while to launch.
And, you know, McDonald's conversation has been fantastic as we share with them our development plans and they've taken through with us how they want to run it. And so, it'll be balanced and thoughtful over the period from the tail end of this year up to the end of 2026.
Andrew Wolf -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst
Thank you. And you know to the McDonald's franchisee relationship, you know, I mean, what is your role? Is it more training or is it kind of getting them excited about it? And I'm sure McDonald's is kind of -- you're collaborating with them on how you're going to interact with the franchisees, but, you know, what is going to be Krispy Kreme's, you know, interaction with the franchisees to help them -- you know, to help make this successful?
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Our focus is awesome doughnuts, every time, every day. Delivered at the right time as agreed with the customer. Perfect service level. So, you know really, we're -- we're -- we're really focused on strengthening our operations right now.
Talked a lot about modernizing and improving how we make and move doughnuts. And you know, I think all our customers expect that. Whether it's a McDonald's franchisee, Walmart, Kroger, or indeed our international partners. With that, our primary focus, that's where our Krispy Kreme excel.
I mean, obviously it's -- it's up to McDonald's themselves to manage their own relationships. We trust them. We've got a great relationship with them and we'll take their guide and provide any insights to them. But do remember it's a very simple operating operations activity, which is, we're bringing fresh doughnuts already made, they just need to be taken from the tray put in a bag or even a six-count box handed over to the customer.
So it should be a relatively easy activity for the McDonald's crew and the franchisees. So -- so the real focus is just great doughnuts.
Andrew Wolf -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst
Fair enough. And if I could just ask one follow up. I was distracted away from the call for a minute, so you might have talked about this, but could you elaborate on the, you know, big increase in the digital sales and penetration in the US and the sustainability of that?
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, the customer is looking, as we've said before, for us to provide a more convenient way to access Krispy Kreme. No. 1 reason why somebody still gives us that they may not purchase Krispy Kreme is it's just not convenient to them. And so, it's been great.
Both through our owned app and partnering with third parties to -- to -- to grow the digital channel And it -- it's becoming a significant channel and a -- and a big growth driver indeed. I mean, in terms of go forward, we actually just relaunched our loyalty program and we've seen tremendous response there, tremendous engagement there. Energizing both existing loyalty members and new ones. So we actually expect to -- to drive future sales growth with that loyalty program.
So digital is -- is here to stay in the modern world for sure. And Krispy Kreme, we're really -- we're really leveraging that.
Andrew Wolf -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst
Thank you. That'll do it for me. Appreciate it.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Andrew.
Operator
We'll take our next question from Daniel Guglielmo at Capital One Securities.
Daniel Guglielmo -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
Hello, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. The international segment has continued to perform well and now on Japan and Canada and there. I just want to dig into the point of access mix.
It seems like there are a lot more fresh shops there relative to the US segment. And would you ever think about adding more fresh shops into the US? It seems like the logistics and volume of doughnuts that would be delivered to McDonald's would be similar to what you would get at a fresh shop.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
The -- the -- the higher rate of fresh shops international reflects a number of local conditions, including local labor costs, the size of the big metro cities. And one of the great things about the Krispy Kreme model is you can adapt to the different environment. Yes, we -- we have a number of fresh shops in the US. In some of the big cities they make sense.
But with the vast opportunity of deliver fresh daily with these great national partners, you know, we're focusing our attention on the US on what is a very capital efficient model leveraging the excess capacity of the production hubs through these off premise DFD doors, which remember typically costs between one and maybe $3,000 to set up if it's one of the more premium cabinets. So, you know, that -- it's such a good capital return. We've got the excess capacity in the US. That's our focus rather than the fresh shops.
Daniel Guglielmo -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
Great. Thank you. Appreciate the detail. And then, just one more on McDonald's.
In -- in the history of McDonald's, do they have a partnership like this in the past? I'm just curious if there's like a playbook you all are going off of or if it's kind of a new playbook that that you all are putting together.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, one thing I've learned about Krispy Kreme is every day is a -- is a new thing. There's so much opportunity here. And I think McDonald's came to us thinking about doing something different, doing something different with their breakfast approach do something different with a partner with sweet treats. So I think certainly from our point of view, it feels pioneering, but it's a great question.
Daniel Guglielmo -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
Great. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator instructions] At this time, there are no further questions. That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the conference back over to Josh Charlesworth for closing remarks.
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, thank you, everybody. Thanks for your interest in Krispy Kreme today, and of course, thank you to all our Krispy Kremers for your ongoing commitment to bring joy to our customers. Through Krispy Kreme. Have a good day.
Take care.
Operator
[Operator signoff]
Duration: 0 minutes
Call participants:
Alexandre Eldredge -- Investor Relations
Josh Charlesworth -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Jeremiah Ashukian -- Chief Financial Officer
Sara Senatore -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
John Ivankoe -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Aisling Grueninger -- Piper Sandler -- Analyst
Bill Chappell -- Truist Securities -- Analyst
Andrew Wolf -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst
Daniel Guglielmo -- Capital One Securities -- Analyst
