u pdate
2018
Sustainability
Dear Shareholders,
Last year, we launched our first Sustainability Report,
which revolves around four pillars: Food, Community,
Employees, and Conservation.Our sustainability goal is to leave every community better
than we found it. Whether it’s creating jobs, planting
trees in local parks, feeding veterans and active military,
helping support a sustainable bee population, or finding
ways to save valuable resources, Texas Roadhouse is
committed to sustainability.
We have often stated that our Managing Partner model,
which provides our Managing Partners 10 % of their
restaurants’ profits, gives us an advantage over our
competitors. This ownership mentality, or “skin in the
game,” creates an incentive for our Managing Partners to
operate profitable restaurants.
We believe the ancillary benefit of this is that they are also
incentivized to control waste and be good stewards of
their resources, which is a key driver of our sustainability
efforts. For example, having in-house Meat Cutters
provides higher-quality steaks to our guests and helps to
reduce millions of pounds of food waste each year.
In 2018 , we also made the decision to communicate our
annual sustainability updates in our Annual Report, on
our website, and to our Board of Directors.One highlight of this year’s Sustainability Report is an
addition to our Animal Welfare Policy, which now includes
information about the United Egg Producers (UEP)
certification that our egg suppliers participate in. UEP
certification includes:- Code of conduct signed by employees trained in
animal care - Annual compliance assessment conducted by
independent, third-party auditors - Scientifically-supported standards for allotment of
space for hens in various housing environments - Feed, clean water, and fresh air 24 / 7
UEP certification has been endorsed by the Food
Marketing Institute and the National Council of
Chain Restaurants.In addition to updating our Animal Welfare Policy,
recycling continues to be a focus. Last year, we saw a
drop in the number of stores participating in recycling
programs from 96 % to 74 % from last year’s report. This
drop is attributed to an excess of recyclables after China
stopped importing from the U.S. and other countries.We are also testing a crayon recycling program in
our restaurants this year. We will continue to find
opportunities to provide sustainability messaging in our
kids’ activity books and as part of kids’ night activities in
our restaurants.Another opportunity we are exploring is replacing neon
signs with LED, which will save energy and lead to cost
savings for our partners through fewer repairs and other
benefits, which is a win-win.To further our commitment to supporting the bee
population, we recently partnered with the Honeybee
Conservancy, a 501 c 3 non-profit that works to bolster bee
populations by placing honey and solitary bees in ‘bee
sanctuaries’ across the U.S. As part of our partnership,
we will place hives in communities across the country to
educate the community and inspire others to get involved.We look forward to providing more updates going
forward as we are committed to sustainability in
every community we serve. To review our 2018
Sustainability Report, visit our website at
texasroadhouse.com/sustainability.Travis Doster
Vice President of Communications