Raphael Stevens

Dairy Queen is expanding its burger offerings as the fast-food chain looks beyond Blizzards and other desserts.
The new Stackburger line is Dairy Queen’s biggest menu expansion in two decades, with five burger varieties for U.S. customers.
Warren Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway has owned Dairy Queen for 25 years.

Dairy Queen’s Flamethrower Stackburger and small ice cream cone
Source: Dairy Queen

Dairy Queen is expanding its burger offerings as the fast-food chain looks beyond Blizzards and other desserts.
The new Stackburger line is Dairy Queen’s biggest menu expansion in two decades, with five burger flavors for U.S. customers: Flamethrower, Loaded A1, Bacon Two Cheese Deluxe, Two Cheese Deluxe and the Original Cheeseburger. They’re available as one-third pound double burgers or one-half pound triple burgers — hence the Stackburger name.

The burgers will be a permanent addition to menus at the company’s DQ Grill & Chill locations, which account for 72% of Dairy Queen’s more than 3,300 U.S. restaurants. The Stackburger line is also launching in Canada.
Dairy Queen is far from the only restaurant chain to widen its offerings to attract more customers. Panera Bread has been pushing for more dinner orders by adding items such as flatbread pizza to its menu, while Dine Brands’ IHOP made waves several years ago by briefly changing its name to IHOB to promote its burgers.
Warren Buffett’s holding company Berkshire Hathaway has owned Dairy Queen for 25 years. With a net income of $84.3 million in 2021, the fast-food chain is a relatively small component of Buffett’s empire, which reported net income attributable to shareholders of $89.8 billion for last year. Last year, Dairy Queen’s annual revenue rose 18% to $224.7 million, according to franchise disclosure documents.
The official launch on Tuesday is a long time coming. International Dairy Queen CEO Troy Bader said in an interview that the chain started looking at its menu critically nearly five years ago, around the time that he took the reins of the company. The company knew that it couldn’t “be everything to everyone,” so it tried to figure out what its customers wanted, according to Bader.
Dairy Queen landed on two foods: chicken strips and burgers. The chain revamped its chicken strip offerings first before it tackled burgers.

“I would say it’s one of the first true menu strategies that we’ve had within the Dairy Queen system in a very, very long time,” Bader said.
In markets such as the the Southeast, its food offerings already accounted for the majority of sales, topping its sweet treats offerings. And customers who bought their lunch or dinner there tended to still buy a Blizzard or ice cream cone, too.
Improving its burgers took several years, kicking off in earnest in 2019. Dairy Queen created a new bun that was airy yet sturdy enough to handle the weight of three burger patties. It swapped out its cheese options for white cheddar and a sharper American cheese.

Dairy Queen CEO Troy Bader
Source: Dairy Queen

“We were proud of our burgers, but we knew that we could do better with them,” Bader said.
Then the chain put the Stackburgers to the test. For almost 10 months, Dairy Queen tested the new menu items in Birmingham, Alabama; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and South Bend, Indiana. Restaurants in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Alberta were also included in the test. In total, nearly 100 locations were involved, making it the largest test for the chain in more than two decades.
The pandemic also caused some delays. A nationwide labor crunch exacerbated supply chain issues, so Dairy Queen opted to postpone the launch, which was originally slated for late fall in 2021. Bader said the chain wanted to make sure its vendors had enough employees to ensure that franchisees weren’t left in a lurch.
But the chain wasn’t concerned about customers staying home. Bader said Dairy Queen sales fell significantly for six weeks in the spring of 2020, as the pandemic led to lockdowns and fear about even visiting drive-thru lanes. After that month and a half, however, its business rebounded quickly.
“From period forward, we’ve had nothing but record sales,” he said.
In the two-year period from 2020 through 2021, the chain’s U.S. same-store sales climbed 17% compared with 2019 levels.
Bader is confident that the burgers will further fuel sales. Dairy Queen soft-launched the Stackburgers on Feb. 7 and has so far seen double-digit increases in units sold, without any advertising.
While fast-food competitors such as McDonald’s are testing or adding plant-based burgers, Dairy Queen is sitting out for now.
“There’s so much new news with our Stackburgers and with the labor situation with our franchisees, we didn’t want to introduce too many new items for them,” Bader said. “When we think about plant-based proteins it’s something that we’re continuing to monitor, to watch and see what role it can play within the Dairy Queen system.”
Berkshire Hathaway is preparing to hold an in-person annual shareholders meeting on April 30, its first since the pandemic began. Bader said Dairy Queen will forego Blizzards and instead highlight pre-packaged items, such as its nondairy Dilly bars, for investors’ safety and comfort.

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Hong Kong wants to lift some border restrictions for international travelers starting next month, according to a government official. 
The Chinese territory intends to ease a travel ban on flights from nine countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Australia.
Hong Kong has stuck firmly to a “dynamic zero” coronavirus policy, like in mainland China, seeking to stamp out all outbreaks with sweeping restrictions and quarantine.

Hong Kong faces a tough balancing act as the city aims to lift some border restrictions for international travelers starting next month, according to a government official. 
The Chinese territory intends to ease a travel ban on flights from nine countries, including the U.S., U.K. and Australia, and allow those travelers to quarantine in a hotel for seven days rather than 14. The changes will take effect on April 1.

“It’s very important that we have to cater to the needs of the international businessmen, but equally we also have a very large population in Hong Kong that needs the relaxation of the border restriction to the mainland of China, because that’s also a very important part of Hong Kong for family reunion and businesses as well,” Bernard Chan, convenor of the Executive Council, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday. 
“So it’s a very tough balancing act,” he said, especially as China continues to see pockets of Covid outbreaks.
Hong Kong’s executive council is a cabinet-like body that advises the city’s chief executive.
China has been battling its worst Covid outbreak since early 2020, with local governments blaming the new omicron BA.2 variant for the current wave sweeping across the country. The biggest city Shanghai began a two-stage lockdown Monday.

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Hong Kong has stuck firmly to a “dynamic zero” coronavirus policy, like in mainland China, seeking to stamp out all outbreaks with sweeping restrictions and quarantine.

The city reported 7,685 new Covid infections on Monday and 168 deaths, according to official data, as the latest wave of omicron infections continues to abate.
Between March 22 and 28, an average of 4,217.4 cases were reported per day, a decline from the average of 8,704.4 cases per day reported in the previous 7-day period, according to government data.
Still, Hong Kong lags behind regional peers — especially rival financial hub Singapore, which said last Thursday it will lift nearly all border restrictions for vaccinated travelers starting next month.  
“As the rest of the world is opening up, we need to try to figure a way out,” said Chan. “Starting from April 1, we start to reduce the hotel quarantine time from 14 days to 7 days. Obviously, it’s not good enough, but still it’s a big improvement,” he added.

Covid impacts business hub status

According to a recent report from the European Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, the city’s zero- Covid strategy “has come at a very high cost for Hong Kong’s business community.”
The survey found 49% of the companies polled said they are considering relocating their offices fully or partially in the next 12 months.
Moreover, existing restrictions have hampered the corporate strategy or hiring plans for 2 out of 3 companies in Hong Kong, the report added.
Acknowledging “these are trying times” for Hong Kong, Chan said he remains confident the city will regain its status as a global business hub when the pandemic ends. 
“I do believe Covid will be over. It’s a matter of when it’s over,” he said. “Hong Kong still is very attractive being a center of the Greater Bay of China and the economy of China continues to grow. I think people will come back.”

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Over the past few weeks a number of major economies have laid out plans to reduce their reliance on Russian hydrocarbons.
The challenges and opportunities facing the energy sector were addressed on Monday during a panel discussion at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
During the panel, the CEO of Italian oil and gas firm Eni sought to highlight the current tensions facing his sector.

Ships sailing into the port of Rotterdam in February 2022.
Federico Gambarini | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Concerns related to both the energy transition and energy security have been thrown into sharp relief by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is a major supplier of oil and gas, and over the past few weeks a number of major economies have laid out plans to reduce their reliance on its hydrocarbons.

On Friday, the U.S. and the European Commission issued a statement on energy security in which they announced the creation of a joint task force on the subject. 
The parties said the U.S. would “strive to ensure” at least 15 billion cubic meters of extra liquefied natural gas volumes for the EU this year. They added this would be expected to increase in the future.
Commenting on the agreement, President Joe Biden said the U.S. and EU would also “work together to take concrete measures to reduce dependence on natural gas — period — and to maximize … the availability and use of renewable energy.”
All of the above speaks to the huge task facing governments around the world who say they want to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, prevent the worst effects of climate change and simultaneously safeguard energy security.
The challenges and opportunities facing the energy sector were addressed on Monday during a panel discussion at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

During the panel, which was moderated by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble, the CEO of Italian oil and gas firm Eni sought to highlight the current tensions facing his sector.
Claudio Descalzi said, historically, a wide variety of resources had been harnessed. “We know very well that in the last 200 years, all the different energy vectors [have] … been added,” he said. “So coal, plus oil, plus gas and plus renewables.”
“We never found a source, or energy source, that replaced everything. It’s crazy to think that there is something that can replace everything.”

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Others speaking on Monday included Anna Shpitsberg, deputy assistant secretary for energy transformation at the U.S. Department of State.
Shpitsberg said that while the U.S.-EU task force would focus on areas like securing LNG supply, it would also look to provide “some certainty to U.S. producers that will be amping up and surging supply into Europe over the long term and up to 2030.” Permitting and infrastructure would also be areas of focus, she explained.  
It was also important not to compromise the energy transition, she acknowledged, before going on to reference the argument put forward by Eni’s Descalzi.
“To the comments that were made that we cannot rely on one technology, just like we cannot rely too heavily on one supply route, it is the reason that we’re putting so much money into hydrogen.”
Shpitsberg called hydrogen “a game-changing technology that speaks to a variety of other sources … because it can underpin nuclear, it can underpin gas, it can underpin renewables, it can clean a good portion of it and so can CCUS [carbon capture utilization and storage].”
“So for us, it’s making sure that the market has enough signals, it knows the regulatory environment will support the signals for current energy security,” she said.
“But we are sending, also, all the resources we can toward the transition. It’s why we’re putting billions of dollars into hydrogen R&D.”

‘Versatile energy carrier’

Described by the International Energy Agency as a “versatile energy carrier,” hydrogen has a diverse range of applications and can be deployed in sectors such as industry and transport.
It can be produced in a number of ways. One method includes using electrolysis, with an electric current splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen.
If the electricity used in this process comes from a renewable source such as wind or solar then some call it green or renewable hydrogen.
While there is excitement in some quarters about hydrogen’s potential, the vast majority of its generation is currently based on fossil fuels.

Read more about clean energy from CNBC Pro

Others speaking on Monday included Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum.
Again, Jafar made the case for gas’ importance in the years ahead, calling it “a fundamental enabler of renewables” because it backed up their intermittent supply. It was also, he claimed, “the path to future technologies like hydrogen.”
Monday’s panel bookends a month in which the International Energy Agency reported that 2021 saw energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rise to their highest level in history. The IEA found energy-related global CO2 emissions increased by 6% in 2021 to reach a record high of 36.3 billion metric tons.
In its analysis, the world’s leading energy authority pinpointed coal use as being the main driver behind the growth. It said coal was responsible for more than 40% of overall growth in worldwide CO2 emissions last year, hitting a record of 15.3 billion metric tons.
“CO2 emissions from natural gas rebounded well above their 2019 levels to 7.5 billion tonnes,” the IEA said, adding that CO2 emissions from oil came in at 10.7 billion metric tons. More

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France-based investment firm Eurazeo believes consumers are still spending healthily as geopolitical turmoil and inflation roil the economy, managing director Adrianne Shapira told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday.
“So far, the consumer is strong. I mean, we really have seen across our portfolios, strong performance,” Shapira said in an interview on “Mad Money.”

France-based investment firm Eurazeo sees consumers spending healthily as geopolitical turmoil and inflation roil the economy, managing director Adrianne Shapira told CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday.
“So far, the consumer is strong. I mean, we really have seen across our portfolios, strong performance. Again, we [invest in] earlier stage growth equities, so I’d say we’ve been delivering double-digit growth, and we’re thankfully not necessarily hit by the macro yet, because of the size of our businesses,” Shapira said in an interview on “Mad Money.”

“It’s been good. We have gone through between the stimulus, obviously a lot of crises, now geopolitical risk. The fact is the consumer has shrugged off a lot, so fingers crossed,” added Shapira, who previously spent over 13 years at Goldman Sachs in equities research.
Her comments come after the University of Michigan’s final reading of March consumer sentiment dropped to 59.4 below the final reading of 62.8 in February.
Eurazeo stock rose 1.72% on Monday. The company’s investments include names such as Nest Fragrances, Herschel Supply and recently-added Beekman 1802, which has a collaboration with Netflix series “Bridgerton” including personal care products like soaps and candles.
When Cramer asked about the products’ high price tags and high raw costs the company might be facing, Shapira said that consumers are willing to pay up for Beekman’s products because they are backed up by “real science” and the brand is approachable “early prestige.”
“The category of skincare has been incredibly resilient because it’s been all about self-care during Covid, and I think those habits will stick,” she added about the decision to invest in Beekman.

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Disney has vowed to help have Florida’s HB 1557 law, which is known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, repealed.
The company’s public opposition to the new law comes after CEO Bob Chapek was criticized for not speaking up sooner and with more fervor ahead of the bill passing the Florida Senate.
The company has already vowed to donate $5 million to organizations that work to protect LGTBQ+ rights and has begun speaking to employees in town hall meetings about how it can better serve this community.

After Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill into law on Monday, the Walt Disney Company condemned the legislation and vowed to help have it repealed.
“Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law,” the company said in a statement. “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”

Walt Disney employees and demonstrators during a rally against the Florida “Don’t Say Gay” bill at Griffith Park in Glendale, California, U.S., on Tuesday, March 22, 2022.
Alisha Jucevic | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Disney’s public opposition to the new law comes after CEO Bob Chapek was criticized for not speaking up sooner and with more fervor ahead of the bill passing through the Florida Senate. Employees staged a walkout in protest of the company’s lackluster initial response and Disney has been rushing to make amends with its staff and the LGBTQA+ community ever since.
Read more: Chapek under pressure after rift with predecessor Iger
The company has already vowed to donate $5 million to organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign, that work to protect LGTBQ+ rights. Executives have begun speaking to employees in town hall meetings about how it can better serve this community in the future.
Pixar employees, in particular, have been vocal in recent weeks, asking the company to “take a decisive public stand” against the legislation and others like it. The company paused donations in Florida earlier this month and said it would reevaluate its strategy for advocacy going forward.
Additionally, the company has reinstated a same-sex kiss that was cut from the upcoming Pixar film “Lightyear.” While the relationship between Hawthorne (voiced by Uzo Aduba) and another woman in the film is clear, the kiss had initially been removed from the final cut.
“We are dedicated to standing up for the rights and safety of LGBTQ+ members of the Disney family, as well as the LGBTQ+ community in Florida and across the country,” Disney said in its statement Monday.

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Will Smith took to social media on Monday to formally apologize to Chris Rock for slapping him during Sunday’s Academy Award ceremony.
The Academy said Monday it condemns the actions of Smith during Sunday’s Oscars and plans to launch a formal review of his actions.
Rock has declined to press charges over the incident.

Will Smith took to social media on Monday to formally apologize to Chris Rock for slapping him during Sunday’s Academy Award ceremony, calling his behavior “unacceptable and inexcusable.” The incident took place prior to Smith accepting the award for best actor later in the evening.
“Jokes at my expense are part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear, and I reacted emotionally,” Smith wrote in a post on Instagram.

“I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong.”
Smith took umbrage with a joke made by Rock about Smith’s wife Jada Pinkett Smith for her bald head. Pinkett-Smith has openly talked about having a hair loss condition. After Smith hit him, Rock said: “Will Smith just smacked the s— out of me.”
Smith repeatedly yelled at Rock to “Keep my wife’s name out of your f—– mouth.”
When he accepted his Oscar, he apologized to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as well as his fellow nominees. He didn’t mention Rock.
The Academy said Monday it condemns the actions of Smith during Sunday’s Oscars and plans to launch a formal review of his actions.

In a statement Monday, the film academy said: “The Academy condemns the actions of Mr. Smith at last night’s show. We have officially started a formal review around the incident and will explore further action and consequences in accordance with our bylaws, standards of conduct and California law.”
Rock has declined to press charges over the incident, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Here is Smith’s full statement:

Violence in all of its forms is poisonous and destructive. My behavior at last night’s Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable. Jokes at my expense are a part of the job, but a joke about Jada’s medical condition was too much for me to bear and I reacted emotionally.
I would like to publicly apologize to you, Chris. I was out of line and I was wrong. I am embarrassed and my actions were not indicative of the man I want to be. There is no place for violence in a world of love and kindness.
I would also like to apologize to the Academy, the producers of the show, all the attendees and everyone watching around the world. I would like to apologize to the Williams Family and my King Richard Family. I deeply regret that my behavior has stained what has been an otherwise gorgeous journey for all of us.
I am a work in progress.

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