Food & Beverage

Rave rockets forward, but so do gas prices

Pizza Inn and Pie Five parent, Rave Restaurant Group, pulled out a substantial stock value gain over the course of last week's trading.

Photo: iStock

January 18, 2021 by S.A. Whitehead — Food Editor, Net World Media Group

In the realm of publicly traded pizza stocks last week, chalk one up for the little guy. The smallest publicly traded pizza brand monitored by this site weekly, Rave Restaurant Group, managed to make a substantial percentage increase in its value over the trading week. The parent company of Pizza Inn and Pie Five gained 17 cents to close Friday at $1.06, marking one of the largest single-week gains the Dallas-based company has experienced in a long time.

Louisville, Kentucky-based Papa John's also had a nice bump, gaining $1.73 over the course of the five trading days.

Domino's Pizza and Yum Brands, however, were down. Domino's closed Friday at $375.23, off $13.60 for the week. Yum, the Pizza Hut parent company, lost 53 cents in value on the week to close Friday at $106.62.

Cheese

The last several months of cheese price increases failed to abate for pizza operators last week, as both barrels and blocks gained again in value. The weekly average for blocks gained 13 cents to settle in at $1.91, while barrels averaged just a cent higher at $1.61, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Barrels closed at $1.57, while 40-pound blocks ended at $1.83.

Cheese production rates are busy at this time of year, according to the U.S.D.A., even though restaurant cheese sales remain subdued when compared to previous years.

Wheat

Wheat prices gained moderately last week, mostly on winter wheat prices, while spring wheat values were mixed. The gains came on the heels of news that Russia expects to increase its wheat export tax March 1, which has pushed U.S. wheat prices higher, due to worries around supply of the commodity worldwide.

Wheat markets are also closed today in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but on Friday Chicago March soft red winter wheat futures gained nearly 5 cents to come in at $6.75, while March spring wheat futures on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange fell less than a center to $6.40. Kansas City hard red winter March futures grew nearly 8 cents to $6.44.

Auto fuel

Gas prices leapt up again, as the American Automobile Association said crude prices remain aloft while gas demand grows. Over the week, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline grew 5 cents to $2.36, which is eight cents more than the previous week and 20 cents more than just a month earlier.

Crude prices continued to increase this week due to market optimism that coronavirus vaccines will help crude demand recover this year. Additionally, the U.S. Energy Information Administration's new weekly report helped bolster prices, detailing that total domestic crude inventories declined by 3.2 million barrels (bbl) to 482.2 million bbl the previous week.

The states with the biggest gas price gains last week were Michigan (up 16 cents), as well as Kansas and Texas (each up 12 cents, and then Virginia and New Mexico (up 11 cents). The average price of a gallon of regular unleaded nationally is $2.39, up 7 cents from the previous week and 18 cents from last month. At $2.71, mid-grade followed the same trend, along with premium, which averaged $2.98.

Fluctuations were not nearly as marked for alternate fuels, like diesel and E85. The price of diesel today averaged $2.63, up 4 cents from last week, while E85 averaged $2.11, up 5 cents from the previous week's average.

Natural gas

Natural gas spot prices rose at most locations for the latest week of reporting that ended on Jan. 13. The Henry Hub spot price rose from $2.70 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) to $2.75/MMBtu over that timeframe.

At the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), the price of the February 2021 contract increased 1 cent to $2.73/MMBtu over the seven days. The price of the 12-month strip averaging February 2021 through January 2022 futures contracts remained the same over the period at $2.84/MMBtu.

The natural gas plant liquids composite price at Mont Belvieu, Texas, rose by 50 cents/MMBtu, averaging $7.01/MMBtu for the period. The prices of ethane, isobutane, natural gasoline, propane, butane all rose, by 5%, 7%, 8%, 9% and 9%, respectively.

About S.A. Whitehead

Pizza Marketplace and QSRweb editor Shelly Whitehead is a former newspaper and TV reporter with an affinity for telling stories about the people and innovative thinking behind great brands.