레스토랑 브랜즈 인터내셔널(QSR) 2026년 3분기 실적 발표: 버거킹 미국 매출 8.4% 증가

레스토랑 브랜즈 인터내셔널(NYSE: QSR)은 2026년 3분기 전 세계 시스템 매출이 3.8%의 동일 매장 매출 성장과 3.0%의 순 매장 수 성장에 힘입어 6.2% 증가했다고 발표했다. 버거킹 미국 법인이 가장 강력한 성장 동력으로 유지된 반면, 파파이스 미국 법인은 연결 실적 모멘텀을 계속해서 압박했다.

핵심 요약

• 3분기 동일 매장 매출은 3.8% 증가하며 5분기 연속 3% 이상을 기록했다. 전 세계 시스템 매출은 6.2% 증가했으며, 자체 조정 영업이익은 6.7% 증가했다.
• 조정 주당순이익(EPS)은 1.10달러로 6.9% 증가했다. 환율 역풍 0.01달러와 레스토랑 홀딩스 영업이익 감소 영향 0.01달러를 제외하면 조정 EPS는 8.6% 증가했다.
• 버거킹 미국의 동일 매장 매출은 8.4% 증가했고, 시스템 매출은 7.5% 증가했다. 경영진은 버거킹이 미국 버거 카테고리에서 2위 자리를 탈환했다고 밝혔다.
• 해외 동일 매장 매출은 3.9% 증가했으며, 5.6%의 순 매장 성장에 힘입어 시스템 매출은 9.0% 증가했다. 독일, 브라질, 중국, 일본, 한국이 가장 강력한 성장을 보인 시장에 포함됐다.
• 파파이스의 동일 매장 매출은 1.8% 감소했다. 경영진은 회복이 당초 예상보다 더 오래 걸릴 것이라며, 2026년 하반기 내에 해당 브랜드의 동일 매장 매출이 플러스로 돌아서기는 어려울 것으로 예상했다.
• RBI는 이번 분기 동안 5억 달러 이상의 잉여현금흐름을 창출하고 주주에게 5억 6,900만 달러를 환원했다. 3분기 말 순차입금 비율(Net leverage)은 4.0배를 기록했다.

주요 재무 데이터

올해 누적으로 자체 조정 영업이익은 7.8% 증가했고, 조정 EPS는 11.1% 상승했다. RBI는 3분기까지 자사주 매입 4억 4,400만 달러를 포함해 총 13억 달러를 주주에게 환원했다.

3분기 자체 조정 영업이익에는 팀호튼스 미국 소비자 포장재(CPG) 사업의 관세 환급금 약 1,100만 달러가 포함되었다. 이는 레스토랑 홀딩스를 제외한 부문 일반관리비(G&A)의 1,000만 달러 자체 증가로 대부분 상쇄되었다. 경영진은 일반관리비 증가분의 절반가량이 해외 부문에 집중된 일회성 법률 비용을 반영한 것이라고 밝혔다.

사업 및 운영 실적

버거킹 미국

RBI 영업이익의 거의 19%를 차지하는 버거킹 미국은 8.4%의 동일 매장 매출 성장을 달성했다. 경영진은 메뉴 업그레이드, 매장 운영 실행력, 가족 중심의 협업, 그리고 5달러 듀오(Duos) 및 7달러 트리오(Trios)와 같은 가성비 메뉴 제공을 이러한 실적의 원인으로 꼽았다.

업그레이드된 와퍼와 치킨 너겟이 핵심 메뉴의 판매량 증가를 견인했다. 경영진은 와퍼의 매장당 평균 매출액(AUV)이 전년 대비 두 자릿수 증가했으며, 킹 주니어(King Jr.) 어린이 세트 판매량은 40% 증가했고 너겟 판매량은 35% 이상 증가했다고 전했다.

버거킹 미국 매장의 약 60%가 리모델링을 마쳤다. 경영진은 리모델링된 '시즐(Sizzle)' 매장의 매장당 평균 매출액이 약 220만 달러 이상으로, 전체 매장의 평균 매출액인 약 170만~180만 달러와 대비된다고 밝혔다. 매장의 대부분은 2028년 또는 2029년까지 현대적인 매장 이미지를 갖출 것으로 예상된다.

팀호튼스

RBI 영업이익의 약 41%를 차지하는 팀호튼스 캐나다는 2분기보다 개선된 1.8%의 동일 매장 매출 성장을 기록했다. 모든 시간대와 메뉴 카테고리 전반에서 매출이 증가했다.

차가운 음료 매출은 젊은 고객을 유인하고 오후 시간대 방문객을 늘린 신메뉴에 힘입어 5% 가까이 성장했다. 오후/저녁 식사 메뉴 또한 멜트(Melt) 플랫폼과 재출시된 메뉴에 힘입어 성장세로 돌아섰다.

경영진은 차가운 음료, 점심 및 저녁 메뉴, 캐나다 내 추가 매장 개설, 그리고 미국 내 팀호튼스의 장기적 확장을 통해 추가 성장을 추진할 계획이다.

해외 부문

영업이익의 29%를 차지하는 해외 부문은 동일 매장 매출 성장률 3.9%, 순 매장 성장률 5.6%를 기록했다. 시스템 매출은 9.0% 증가했다.

버거킹 일본은 6분기 연속 두 자릿수 동일 매장 매출 성장을 달성했으며, 버거킹 한국 역시 두 자릿수 성장을 기록했다. 버거킹 중국은 전년 동기의 두 자릿수 성장에 따른 기저효과에도 불구하고 3분기 연속 두 자릿수 동일 매장 매출 성장을 기록했다.

버거킹은 미국과 캐나다 외 지역에서 매장 수 13,000개를 돌파했다. 파파이스 인터내셔널은 50개 이상의 국가/지역에서 2,000개 이상의 매장을 돌파했으며, 2년 전의 거의 두 배에 달하는 20억 달러 이상의 시스템 매출을 기록했다.

파파이스

파파이스의 동일 매장 매출은 1.8% 감소했다. 경영진은 두 가지 주요 요인으로 6달러 빅박스(Big Box) 프로모션이 예상보다 적은 추가 수요를 창출했다는 점과, 윙 메뉴 제공을 의도적으로 줄이면서 전년 대비 매출 압박이 발생했다는 점을 꼽았다.

회사는 매장 운영을 단순화하고 뼈 있는 치킨, 텐더, 샌드위치에 우선순위를 두고 있다. 경영진은 서비스 만족도, 체감 가치, 음식의 질이 향상되었고 방문객 수 추이도 전분기 대비 개선되었다고 밝혔다. 그러나 동일 매장 매출이 플러스로 전환되는 시점은 연기되었다.

파파이스 인터내셔널은 여전히 성장 영역으로 남아있다. 경영진은 브라질, 인도, 중유럽 등을 포함한 시장에서 매장 수준의 마진과 투자금 회수 기간이 개선되고 있다고 강조했으며, 해외 사업이 순 매장 성장에 더 큰 기여를 할 것으로 기대하고 있다.

파이어하우스 서브

파이어하우스 서브는 1.5%의 동일 매장 매출 성장과 7.8%의 순 매장 성장을 달성하여 8.3%의 시스템 매출 성장을 기록했다. 해당 브랜드는 이번 분기 동안 북미 1,500번째 매장과 캐나다 200번째 매장을 개장했다.

경영진 가이던스

RBI는 다음과 같이 2026년 전망치를 유지했다:

• 레스토랑 홀딩스를 제외한 부문 일반관리비(G&A) 약 6억~6억 2,000만 달러.
• 순조정 이자비용 5억~5억 2,000만 달러(전년 대비 거의 보합 수준).
• 설비투자(CapEx) 및 현금 인센티브 약 4억 달러.
• 팀호튼스 공급망 마진은 2025년과 비슷한 수준 유지.
• 연간 레스토랑 홀딩스 조정 영업이익 약 1,000만~2,000만 달러.
• 조정 실효세율 18%~19%(예상 범위 하단에 가까울 가능성 높음).
• 연간 자사주 매입 약 5억 달러 및 총 주주 환원액 16억 달러 이상.

경영진은 2026년 중에 수백 개의 버거킹 매장을 재프랜차이즈화하고, 2027년에는 이 활동이 가속화될 것으로 예상한다. RBI는 2027년 말까지 레스토랑 홀딩스의 운영 종료를 계속 목표로 하고 있다.

회사는 또한 주로 이익 성장을 통해 순차입금 비율을 3배대 초중반 수준으로 낮춤으로써 2028년까지 기업 투자적격 등급의 차입금 비율에 도달하겠다는 목표를 재확인했다.

리스크 및 주시해야 할 영역

• 프로모션에 따른 추가 수요 감소와 윙 메뉴 축소 이후, 파파이스의 매출 회복은 경영진의 당초 예상보다 더 많은 시간이 소요되고 있다.
• 사상 최고치의 쇠고기 가격 인플레이션이 버거킹 가맹점주의 수익성을 압박하고 있으며, 이로 인해 리모델링 프로그램이 당초 계획보다 다소 오래 걸릴 수 있다.
• 일부 해외 시장이 점유율을 계속 확대했음에도 불구하고, 경영진은 서유럽 일부 지역의 거시경제적 역풍을 언급했다.
• 휘발유 가격 상승은 고객의 이동 거리가 비교적 먼 캐나다 내 팀호튼스 드라이브스루 및 외곽 지역 매장에 일정 부분 영향을 미쳤다.
• 레스토랑 홀딩스는 재프랜차이즈화 및 해외 스타트업 사업 투자로 인해 4분기에 조정 영업손실을 기록할 것으로 예상된다.
• 3분기 영업이익은 약 1,100만 달러의 관세 환급 혜택을 받은 반면, 해외 부문 수익성은 일회성 법률 비용의 영향을 받았다.

애널리스트 Q&A 하이라이트

버거킹의 성장 여력: 경영진은 매장 리모델링, 추가적인 운영 개선, 지속적인 메뉴 업그레이드를 다년대 성장의 동력으로 꼽았다. 버거킹의 소비자 고려율(consideration rate)은 3년 전 70%에서 78%로 상승했다.

매장 개발: RBI는 매장 신규 개점이 4분기에 집중되는 경향이 유지될 것으로 보고 있다. 해외 가맹점주의 수익성이 개선되고 있으며, 상위 10개 성장 시장의 투자금 회수 기간은 기존에 언급되었던 약 4.5년 미만으로 단축되고 있다.

버거킹 중국: 두 자릿수의 동일 매장 매출 성장과 매장 단위 수익성(unit economics) 개선에 힘입어 2026년 순 매장 증가세로 전환하고 2027년 매장 개발을 가속화한다는 계획을 뒷받침하고 있다.

팀호튼스의 성장 잠재력: 경영진은 캐나다 내 추가 매장 개설, 차가운 음료 및 식사 메뉴를 통한 오후 시간대 매출 증대, 그리고 미국 시장에서의 장기적인 확장을 통해 성장이 이루어질 것으로 예상하고 있다. 캐나다 신규 매장은 정밀한 카니발라이제이션(잠식 효과) 분석 대상이 된다.

레스토랑 홀딩스 전환: 2027년 말 레스토랑 홀딩스 운영이 중단되면, RBI는 남은 300~500개의 캐롤스(Carrols) 매장을 버거킹 미국 및 캐나다 부문으로 흡수할 것으로 예상되며, 해당 범위의 하단에 가까울 가능성이 높다.

실적 발표 전화회의(Earnings Call) 전문

전체 실적 발표 컨퍼런스 콜 녹취록

경영진 발표

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Restaurant Brands International's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to pass the conference over to Tara Andrew's RBI's Director of Investor Relations. Tara, please go ahead.

Unknown Executive

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Restaurant Brands International's earnings call for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Joining me on the call today are Restaurant Brands International's Executive Chairman, Patrick Doyle, CEO; Josh Kobza; and CFO, Sami Siddiqui. Following remarks from Josh, Sami and Patrick, we will open the call to questions.

Today's discussion may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks in the press release issued this morning and in our SEC filings. We will also reference non-GAAP financial measures, reconciliations of which can be found in the press release and trending schedules available on our website. As a reminder, organic adjusted operating income growth is on a constant currency basis and excludes results from the Restaurant Holdings segment. For calendar planning purposes, our preliminary Q4 earnings call is scheduled for the morning of February 11, 2027.

And now I'll turn the call over to Josh.

Joshua Kobza

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. In Q3, we delivered 3.8% same-store sales and 3% net restaurant growth, driving 6.2% system-wide sales growth and 6.7% organic adjusted operating income growth. This marks our fifth consecutive quarter of same-store sales above 3%, led by strong performances from BURGER KING U.S. and international and a return to solid growth at Tim Hortons.

I think there are a few things driving our consistent outperformance but 2 priorities stand out across our brands. The first is a persistent focus on restaurant operations. We know that consistently delivering great food and great experience is fundamental to building guest loyalty and driving sustainable growth where execution is already good. We're raising our standards and where there's more work to do, we're moving with urgency to close the gaps.

The second is listening to our guests and acting on what they're telling us. That looks different across our brands, whether it's elevating the core menu of Burger King, refocusing on Popeyes signature offerings, bringing back guest favorites at Tims or developing locally relevant innovation across our international business. But the underlying principle is the same, understanding what guests value most and giving them more reasons to choose our restaurants.

At the same time, we're expanding the reach of our brands around the world. This quarter, Burger King surpassed 13,000 restaurants outside the U.S. and Canada, while Popeyes crossed 2,000. These are meaningful milestones for both brands, but we're still in the early stages of realizing our full global potential. As our system grows, our increasing scale gives us more opportunities to share ideas, capabilities and operational expertise across our markets.

Looking at the business today, I'm encouraged by both the consistency of our results and the opportunities that are still ahead. We've built a lot of momentum this year and remain focused on creating long-term value for our franchisees and our shareholders.

With that, let's turn to our segment highlights, starting with Tim Hortons, which represents roughly 41% of our operating profit. In Q3, Tims Canada delivered 1.8% same-store sales an encouraging improvement from the second quarter. The team executed a stronger marketing calendar, driving growth across dayparts and categories. Beverages continue to be an important growth driver, with cold beverages up nearly 5% in the quarter. Our mantra offering, which launched in July is off to a great start. Not only does it appeal to younger guests, but over 2/3 of Maco beverages are sold in the PM daypart, helping us capture more demand where we've historically under-indexed. And almost 75% of Mata orders include another item, supporting overall check growth.

We've already expanded the platform with Stronger mocha and see significant room for further innovation. In PM Food, we're also seeing growth. Led by our Melt platform and the return of our Turkey Bacon Club with Honey Mustard. Both offerings innovate on familiar menu items guests already know and love. We also had a delicious lineup of seasonal offerings this quarter, including the return of our popular pumpkin spice beverages and baked goods. And in August, we launched a comprehensive Harry Potter Back to Hogwarts collaboration, featuring seemed bakegoods, cold beverages and retail merchandise to appeal to guests of all ages.

As we add menu innovation, consistent execution remains essential. We're supporting our restaurant owners with speed of service coaching, greater visibility into restaurant cleanliness and simpler processes so teams can deliver an even better guest experience. I saw that commitment firsthand during a recent visit to Eastern Ontario, where our restaurant owners are deeply engaged in their restaurants and their local communities.

We're also growing our loyalty program through partnerships that give guests more reasons to choose Tims. In September, we launched our partnership with Canadian Tire, allowing members to earn Canadian entire money in addition to Tims Rewards. Early account linking are ahead of our expectations, with potential access to at least 5 million additional members. We're also partnering with another iconic Canadian brand, WestJet, to bring Tim's flight rose to the skies beginning next month, extending our reach to Canadians when they travel.

I'm looking forward to what we have planned through the year end including a holiday family partnership and further innovation across Mocha and Mels. Guests can look forward to the return of more fan favorite menu items as well as a new loyalty partnership with WestJet in 2027. Taking a step back, Tims is performing well and delivering solid results in a tough consumer environment. I'm confident in Axle and his team's ability to build on this progress, strengthening the core and balancing relevant innovation with familiar favorites. All supported by consistent restaurant execution.

Now on to our international business, which represents 29% of our operating profit. Tiago and his team delivered another good quarter with same-store sales of 3.9% and net restaurant growth of 5.6%, driving system-wide sales growth of 9%. We saw particularly strong results across several of our largest markets, including Germany, Brazil, China, Japan and Korea. I had the opportunity to visit many of our key markets this quarter and spend time with the teams and partners driving those results. In Tokyo, I visited the Burger King Japan team, who have now delivered 6 consecutive quarters of double-digit same-store sales.

They've also developed some of the most creative and effective marketing across our system. And we brought back several ideas that are already being implemented in other markets. Burger King Korea is also performing very well with an impressive pace of innovation, driving double-digit same-store sales in the third quarter. Later in the quarter, I visited Burger King in Scandinavia, including Norway and Sweden as well as Germany, where Burger King just celebrated its 50th anniversary.

Across all of these markets, I saw how investments in our restaurants and our teams are helping improve our guest experience. Across the international business, our local teams are finding new ways to bring guests into our restaurants. From twist on our flame-grilled beef offerings to new chicken innovation. We're also increasingly taking successful ideas from 1 market to others, including this quarter's Dragon Ball Z partnership that we launched in over 70 markets.

In September, I joined Tiago in London for the Popeyes International Convention. It was exciting to see how far the brand has come and the ambition of our is our franchise partners for what's next. We crossed 2,000 international restaurants this quarter and now operate in more than 50 markets, generating over $2 billion in system-wide sales. That's nearly double the sales of just 2 years ago and roughly 7x the level of when we acquired Popeyes in 2017. We've come a long way in a relatively short period of time. And there is an incredible opportunity ahead of us as we work to become the world's #1 chicken QSR.

Finally, at BK China, our partners at CPE delivered a third consecutive quarter of double-digit same-store sales. lapping double-digit growth in the prior year. This sales momentum combined with improving unit economics gives us confidence in accelerating development and returning to positive net restaurant growth this year. After spending so much time in our international markets this quarter, I came away with an even greater appreciation for the competitive advantage we've built with this business. Our local partners know how to win in their markets. We're increasingly bringing the best ideas across our system. And we're leveraging our established Burger King infrastructure to accelerate the growth of other brands like Popeyes. With significant white space remaining in almost all of our largest markets, we see a long runway ahead.

Now turning to Burger King, which represents nearly 19% of our operating profit. After an awesome first half of the year, we accelerated our outperformance in the third quarter with U.S. same-store sales up 8.4% and system-wide sales up 7.5%. We widened our gap to burger QSR PRs to nearly 10 points, and after years of hard work, we are incredibly proud to have reclaimed the #2 position in the U.S. burger category.

Our convention in Miami this month gave us a chance to come together and celebrate that progress. But what stood out to me with how determined our team and our franchisees are to keep pushing forward. There is no appetite for a victory lap or complacency. We still see lots of opportunities in front of us, and we're very focused on capturing them. Q3 was a good example of how we're doing that, pairing core menu elevation and family-friendly collaborations with consistent accessible value. We continued building on the success of our elevated whopper with popular variations like the Texas Whopper and in September, introduced the next chapter of our culinary elevation road map with upgraded chicken nuggets.

Our new nuggets feature Crispier breading, juicy or chicken and more premium packaging, and we paired them with a revamped sauce lineup. These improvements directly address an opportunity we identified through guest feedback and the response has exceeded our expectations. We're attracting new guests, increasing nugget incidents and closing the gap with competitors in a category that's particularly important for kids and families.

Together with our Dragon Ball Z collaboration, the law helps drive King Junior average unit volumes to their highest level in over a decade. And with volumes still well below peak historical levels, we see considerable room for further growth. We just launched our Hello kids Meal collaboration and have another exciting partnership plan for the holidays to further engage with families.

Alongside these initiatives, our $5 Duos and $7 Trios continue to support steady value incidents as we see outsized growth in more premium areas of the menu. Importantly, none of this would be possible without the commitment of our franchisees who have continued to invest in their restaurants and operations to deliver a better guest experience. Those investments will be the focus of our next elevation chapter, highlighting the improvements we're making to restaurant image through remodels.

Looking ahead, we'll continue introducing new elevation chapters at a regular cadence each designed to address guest feedback and showcase the upgrades we're making to the Burger King can experience. We are very proud of the results at Burger King that they've delivered this year. Reclaim the flame has strengthened the foundation of the business, and elevation is helping us bring that to life for our guests. With more work underway across our menu, operations and restaurant image, we're confident in our ability to continue driving meaningful outperformance.

Moving now to Popeyes, where same-store sales were negative 1.8% this quarter. Although top line performance is still below expectations, our work to strengthen the guest experience is gaining traction. Popeyes was the only brand in the chicken category to deliver year-over-year improvements in overall service satisfaction in each of the first 3 quarters of this year, led by meaningful gains in value for money and food quality.

Satisfaction with our core chicken is the highest it's been on record, and we're seeing encouraging signs in our traffic trends, which has strengthened sequentially. That said, 2 factors weighed on our sales performance this quarter. First, we brought back our $6 Big Box Promotion in September, which proved to be less incremental than we had hoped. Second, as part of our efforts to streamline operations and refocus on our core menu, we made a deliberate decision to scale back our wings offering. Wings add operational complexity and simplifying the platform allows us to put greater emphasis behind the core items that define Popeyes, our boat in chicken, tenders and the sandwich.

While this decision naturally created some year-over-year sales pressure, we think it was the right trade-off for the long-term health of the business. Given these dynamics, while we previously expected to return to positive same-store sales in the second half of this year, we now believe it will take a little bit longer than anticipated. We're not satisfied with our top line results, but the progress we're seeing across our key focus areas: everyday value, operational execution and product satisfaction, give me confidence that Peter and his team are making the right decisions to strengthen the underlying business and position Popeyes for sustainable growth.

Lastly, turning to Firehouse Subs where same-store sales of 1.5% and net restaurant growth of 7.8% drove system-wide sales growth of 8.3%. The team is building excitement through a combination of menu innovation and returning favorites, like our new smoke and honey melts and the fan favorite Thanksgiving sub, which we brought back in September. We also reached 2 exciting development milestones this quarter. Opening our 1,500th restaurant in North America, including our 200th restaurant in Canada. With significant white space in both our home markets and abroad, we see a long runway to bring firehouse to more guests around the world.

Before I hand the call to Sami, I want to take a moment to remember Chris Sorenson, Co-Founder of FIREHOUSE UPS, who recently passed. Together with his brother Robin, Chris built a brand that is passionate and committed to Hardy and flavorful food heartfelt service and public safety. Through the Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation, they have already granted over $100 million to support first responders, something unheard of for a restaurant brand of our size and a great tribute to Chris Robin's personal generosity and care for others. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Robin, the Sorensen family and everyone who knew and loved Chris.

With that, I'll pass it over to Sami.

Sami Siddiqui

Thanks, Josh, and good morning, everyone. Today, I'll discuss our Q3 financial results, capital structure and capital allocation and guidance for the year. We continue to make good progress against our long-term growth targets. In Q3, comparable sales of 3.8% and net restaurant growth of 3% drove system-wide sales growth of 6.2%. That translated into organic AOI growth of 6.7% and nominal adjusted EPS growth of 6.9%. Year-to-date, that brings organic AOI growth to 7.8% and nominal adjusted EPS growth to 11.1%.

Organic AOI growth this quarter included approximately $11 million of tariff refunds in our Tim Hortons U.S. CPG business related to tariffs incurred last year. This was largely offset by a $10 million organic increase in segment G&A, excluding restaurant holdings. Adjusted interest expense declined by $2 million year-over-year our adjusted effective tax rate was 17.4% for the quarter. This brings our year-to-date adjusted tax rate to 17.5%, and we continue to expect an 18% to 19% rate for the full year likely towards the lower end of that range.

Turning to adjusted EPS, which increased by 6.9% this quarter to $1.10 from $1.03 last year. This was driven by AOI growth partially offset by a $0.01 FX headwind and a $0.01 impact from year-over-year from the year-over-year decline in restaurant holdings AOI. Excluding these impacts, adjusted EPS grew by 8.6% in the quarter.

Moving to cash flow and capital allocation. We generated over $500 million of free cash flow in Q3, including the impact of $105 million of CapEx and cash inducements, and a $22 million benefit from our swaps and hedges. We returned $569 million of capital to shareholders through our dividend and share repurchases and including repurchasing a total of $274 million of stock in the quarter. Year-to-date, we've returned $1.3 billion of capital to shareholders, including $444 million of share repurchases and we remain on track to repurchase approximately $500 million for the full year.

We ended Q3 with total liquidity of approximately $2.2 billion including $1 billion of cash and a net leverage ratio of 4.0x. As we discussed at our Investor Day, we remain committed to achieving corporate investment-grade leverage by 2028, and or the low to mid-3x net leverage range, primarily through continued earnings growth. In early September, we reached another important milestone on that path with Moody's upgrading our corporate rating to Ba2 and our first lien secured debt to Ba1. We worked closely with the rating agencies over the past several years, and these upgrades reflect our track record of delivering on our commitment to deleverage.

The current interest rate environment further reinforces why pursuing investment grade is the right decision for RBI. It will give us access to a deeper pool of capital, longer duration debt and a lower cost of borrowing. Importantly, we also believe this will give our franchisees a competitive advantage as RBI would be 1 of the very few large franchise restaurant systems in the U.S. with an investment-grade rating.

We've also proactively managed our interest rate exposure with the vast majority of our debt swapped to fixed, leaving less than 10% exposed to floating rates on an all-in net basis. On top of that, given our significant businesses in Canada and Europe, we've been able to take advantage of lower interest rates in those markets through cross-currency swaps, effectively reducing our overall cost of debt. Together, these strategic decisions leave us well positioned to manage through today's environment while continuing to invest in our brands and return capital to shareholders.

We're also making progress towards a simpler, more highly franchised business. We picked up the pace of Burger King refranchisings in Q3, bringing our year-to-date total to 135 restaurants refranchised through October 23. Our pipeline continues to develop, and we expect to refranchise a couple of hundred restaurants this year with activity accelerating further into 2027 and as we work towards sunsetting restaurant holdings by the end of 2027.

Finally, I'd like to discuss our 2026 financial guidance. First, we continue to expect segment G&A, excluding RH, of about $600 million to $620 million. Second, we continue to expect net adjusted interest expense to stay approximately flat year-over-year in the $500 million to $520 million range. Third, we continue to expect 2026 CapEx and cash inducements, including capital expenditures, tenant inducements and incentives to be around $400 million. Fourth, we continue to expect Tim Hortons supply chain margins to be roughly a lot with 2025 levels. And lastly, we continue to expect total RH AOI of roughly $10 million to $20 million for the full year, down from $21 million year-to-date.

The implied AOI loss in Q4 reflects the impact of Carol's restaurant refranchising and incremental investments in our international start-up businesses that we expect to continue until we transition ownership to new investors. Looking back on the year so far, we've delivered great results. Above algorithm same-store sales of 3.6% organic AOI growth of around 8% and over 11% adjusted EPS growth. We're on track to hit our organic AOI growth target and return over $1.6 billion of capital to shareholders this year.

At the same time, we're making tangible progress towards the longer-term financial model we outlined at our Investor Day with a clear path to investment grade and a simpler, more highly franchised business. I'm excited to finish the year strong and carry this momentum into 2027 as we accelerate restaurant development and move closer to our 2028 vision for the business.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Patrick.

J. Doyle

Thanks, Sami. I'll keep my comments brief today because the message is pretty simple. The plans we put in place over the last several years are working and we're going to keep executing against them. Burger King has delivered over 4 years of industry outperformance. And now we've seen 3 consecutive quarters of truly exceptional results. We're taking share our franchisees are investing and the team continues to raise their standards. At this point, I think the consistency of the results is just as important as the magnitude and when I look at what Tom and his team have planned for the next few years, I have every reason to expect this business will continue performing at a very high level.

At Tims, we said last quarter that we expected results to improve in the second half, and that's exactly what happened. Axl and his team made the necessary adjustments and performance improved. And it's worth remembering that Tims has now delivered 22 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales in Canada. That's a remarkable track record for a business with Tim's market position and 1 that gives me a lot of confidence in its ability to keep growing. And speaking of consistency, International has also delivered 22 quarters of positive same-store sales. And I still think investors underestimate just how strong this business is.

We have more than a dozen international businesses that are not only generating more than $100 million in annual system-wide sales but also growing at double-digit rates. And they're doing this with a healthy balance of same-store sales and new restaurant development. Our international growth isn't concentrated in just a few markets either. Nearly 45% of sales come from outside our 10 largest businesses. Even in some of our most established markets, we're nowhere near the number of restaurants we believe we can ultimately support.

I don't think there's another global QSR company that matches our combination of scale, diversification and growth potential. Of course, there are always areas where we have more work to do. That's the nature of this business. And we should never be satisfied with where we are. There's nothing particularly complicated about our priorities. We want to keep improving our restaurants, growing our brands and delivering against the financial commitments that we've made. We're doing those things, and I expect us to continue doing them.

With that, Rebecca, let's open the line for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Dennis Geiger with UBS. Dennis.

질의응답

Dennis Geiger

I wanted to ask a bit more about the sustainability of the Burger King momentum in the U.S. given continued industry outperformance in the quarter and the ongoing strength against the execution of your plans in a difficult environment. You all commented on the confidence and the continued momentum. But can you speak a little more to the biggest opportunities that remain from here perhaps sort of medium term into '27 and even maybe longer term, as you think about continued upgrades, whatever is left on operations, maybe additional daypart focuses, et cetera? .

Joshua Kobza

Dennis, I think as we look at the Burger King business, it's really impressive. Tom, the team -- the franchisees, they've been doing a really nice job across the board. And I think it's -- the great part about it is that it's underpinned by consistent improvements in the fundamentals. And throughout the year, the results have been really great based on those. But -- as we look forward, I would say over the next months, 2027 and really beyond, as you referenced, there's a lot more to do on all of those fronts. I think about things like our remodels. We have done a lot of remodels. They're going great. The uplifts are really good, but we're still probably around 60% of the system done.

So we've got a number of years in front of us and a lot of stores that still need to get to the right image there. So I expect that will be a driver for quite some time. I think we made a ton of progress on operations. We're much more consistent than we were 3 or 4 years ago. But there are still pockets where we're not there, and we've got our eyes on those, and I think that will probably take us another year or 2 to get some of those in the right place.

And I think what you've seen this year in terms of menu elevation is great. We've worked on the Whopper. We now worked on nuggets. But the reality is there are a lot of other places in the menu, where we're still really excited about how we can respond to the feedback we've gotten from guests and make it even better. I'll tell you, Tom, Patrick I -- we spent a lunch time in the test kitchen. And I'll tell you the challenge is not finding other things we want to elevate. It's figuring out how we sequence them. And I'll tell you, those are going to stretch well into 2028 and beyond. And that's why we're so excited.

So you can kind of tell across all of the core work streams, there's a lot of progress, but I think we have multiple years left in front of us across each of those core work streams. -- where we're going to be able to surprise and excite our guests in new ways and keep driving sustained outperformance.

J. Doyle

Got it. Paul, it's Patrick. I'll share a statistic that I love Three years ago, our Burger King was in the consideration set of 70% of consumers. So 30% of people did not consider Burger King when they were driving down the street and saw different options. That number now is 78%. So it just means the brand is becoming more relevant again. People are thinking about us because of the improvements that we've made because of how we are listening to them about ways to improve the business, and as Josh said, there are so many more ways that we know that we can still improve what we're doing, but guests are responding, and we have a much larger group of guests now who will even think about coming to us to give us their business. And so it's just exciting. There are just a lot of things going in the right direction and so much more that we know we can do.

Operator

Your next question comes from David Palmer with Evercore ISI.

David Palmer

And congrats, particularly to the Burger King U.S. team, that's been fantastic with the momentum. I wanted to ask you about international, obviously, a little bit lower visibility area for the U.S. investor, including Canada. Could you talk about how the markets, the environment might be shifting and how that's influencing the general QSR space in your key markets? And maybe could you speak to market share trends, key initiatives in the key markets that really matter for BK International, but also Tims up in Canada. .

Joshua Kobza

Dave, in terms of the overall environment, it doesn't feel like it's changed too much across our international businesses. I would say it's more stable. Maybe on the margin, things feel a little bit better in Asia and there's maybe some macro headwinds going on in parts of Western Europe. Maybe that's the only shift a little bit versus a year ago.

I think the big new things in our business in terms of what's shifting though, are a couple that come to mind at least. One, our China business has been getting an awful lot better. That's probably 1 of the biggest changes over the last year or 2. We went from a pretty tough spot to now where we really feel like we're on the front foot and have the ability to see a pretty bright future, especially for the Burger King business over the next couple of years.

The other big thing that's changing, I sort of -- I referenced a little bit of it in the prepared remarks. We just had this Popeyes International Summit in London where we got together all of our 50 markets around the world outside of the U.S. and Canada for Popeyes. And things are getting a lot better in the Popeyes business. Those businesses, we have so many that are really seeing their sales take off, and the margin profiles improve and therefore, the payback on a lot of those new and fast-growing markets are getting better and better. So I think that's seen a big positive evolution over the last couple of years.

And I think with that, a lot of our biggest markets, I think we're doing well on market share. Everywhere from places like France where the I'd say the macro environment is tough and maybe the same-store sales environment could be challenging. We're taking a lot of share there. And if you look at some of the biggest APAC markets, places like Japan or Korea, I think we're taking a lot of market share in those. So I think we have a lot of big markets across international, where our -- with our initiatives and the relative market share are doing well in markets that are tough and in markets where the macro is a little bit easier.

With regards to -- I'll switch now to Tim's Canada as well and give you a little bit of sense of the macro and kind of relative performance there. I would characterize the macro in Canada as being relatively stable over the past few quarters. If you look at anything from employment levels to inflation, interest rates, it's been pretty stable. So I think I wouldn't characterize that market as changing too much. The 1 thing that's changed a little bit in the near term recently is obviously, gas prices are up a little bit.

And we see a little bit of an impact from that. We can kind of see it in some of our drive-through and especially more rural markets, you think are the places where people have longer drive times, and they're being mindful about the kilometers they're driving you can see a little bit of an impact there. But obviously, you can see we still did pretty well in the quarter. And I would say, relative to the other major QSR brands in Canada, we're relatively in line for the quarter.

Operator

Your next question comes from Brian Bittner with Oppenheimer.

Brian Bittner

Again, congratulations on the results this morning. I wanted to go back to Burger King. I think it's pretty clear that the business has momentum now. And the turnaround question marks are no really no longer a question. So kind of my question centers on really the opportunity from here relative to the AUVs you're seeing at Burger King now. You're generating around 1.7 million to 1.8 million AUVs. What is your data and analysis suggests the opportunity is against this for the entire system. So we can maybe start to think about the big picture opportunity moving forward for Burger King.

And just also, there's been some articles about potentially extending the remodel time line for Burger King. Is there anything any tidbits you can give us on that?

Joshua Kobza

Brian, thanks for that. A couple of thoughts on Burger King here. In terms of where we can take the AUV, I'll highlight at least -- 2 things for you. One, we -- as I mentioned, we're still working on remodels. And those remodels have a really big uplift. So I think as we move from, call it, 60% remodeled towards 85% and beyond. I think that's going to be a big driver. We know those remodeled restaurants, especially the sizzles, are doing north of $2 million. So that's a very clear opportunity that we're going after over the next couple of years.

Another interesting one, as we go through elevation, I mentioned, we've worked on Whopper and nuggets now. The exciting part about that is we're seeing a big uplift in the AUVs in our core. So our core Whopper AUVs are up double digits year-on-year. Our King juniors or our kids meals are up 40%, and our nuggets are up more than 35%. So I think that gives you a sense of the power of elevating your core menu. And that's -- I think that's a lot of where we'll continue to go over the next couple of years. If you can do things that make your -- the core menu items that people love, even better and get people really excited to come back and give you another trial on the core menu, and you can deliver those kinds of uplifts across the core menu. That's what allows you to, I think, see a path to a really great business in the future with much higher AUVs. Those are a couple of the things that are probably highest in my mind.

J. Doyle

Yes. And Brian, I can jump in on your question around the timing of remodels. And I think we've talked about this a little bit in the past is just beef costs and record high deep inflation. -- has been a headwind to the system's profitability. So despite the amazing progress on the top line, we've -- our franchisees have had to manage through this. The good news is we're starting to see a little bit of relief on that front and we expect to see a little bit more next year. And I think that will naturally cause the pace of the remodels to pick up. The top line is going really well. There's a ton of momentum, a ton of excitement from franchisees desiconvention a couple of weeks ago and the energy was great around the remodel.

And as Josh mentioned, the average AUVs on sizzle remodels is around $2.2 million plus. So you asked about getting that $1.7 million or $1.8 million up, remodeling your restaurant is 1 of the best ways to do it. And we anticipate that may take a little bit longer than expected, but not considerably. And we think we'll get most of the system to a modern image by 2028, 2029 in that general time frame.

Operator

Your next question comes from Danilo Gargiulo with Bernstein.

Danilo Gargiulo

Great. I was wondering if you can contextualize the performance of Tim Hortons relative to your expectations? And specifically, in which a part do you see an outperformance? And where do you see more opportunities to maybe align with peers or exceed your current performance going forward?

Joshua Kobza

So I think that the Tims performance, it was relatively in line with the peers. And I'm happy that we improved from where we were in Q2, that's good. I think our goal, though, is to be consistently outperforming the peers and that's the goal that we have, and Axle has, I think everybody on the team is searching for. Some of the -- if you look at how we performed this quarter, actually, if you look across dayparts, we grew across all day parts. So it was pretty consistent across -- frankly, across dayparts and menu categories were all positive. So kind of in a similar range across the menu.

What was better, I would say, sequentially was our performance in PM Food. So that has been softer in kind of Q1, we got closer to flat in Q2, and now we went positive in Q3. And I think that was a result of some of the better PM innovation that we did across things like melts. So I think a balance and better performance in Q3, though our ambition is to go further. And if I had to characterize what I think we'll be focused on going forward. We're going to keep working on growing in cold beverage. You started to see us innovate faster in cold beverage. We talked about that a bit last quarter. And I think you've seen since that we brought out Mato, which was a great addition and already innovated on that again. And we've also brought energy infusers with Monster.

So we've started to enter some of those new categories that are very incremental to our business. They bring in new guests kind of a different guest demographic and they bring in more guests in the afternoon, which is great for our business. It's been a goal of ours. So that's -- we're going to see more innovation on the Cold Bev side, bringing things that are new and exciting. And we'll also continue to innovate on PM Food. I think we've started to figure out more and more what's working there.

One of the things that's very clear to us is when we bring back guest favorites from the past, we can innovate on them, make them even better. That's something that's really invading -- or that's really resonating with our Tim Hortons guess. And I think you can expect to see more of that later this year and into 2027.

Operator

Your next question comes from Lauren Silberman with Deutsche Bank.

Lauren Silberman

And congrats on the performance. I wanted to ask on just the unit growth side and extent perhaps a little bit about how you're thinking about closing out '26 and you read into '27, just broadly given the macro cost interest rates, I guess, what's the general franchisee sentiment an appetite to accelerate development? And any sort of market or brand color would be helpful.

Sami Siddiqui

Lauren, it's Sami. I can take that one. Look, I think we were pleased to see a little bit of acceleration in the unit growth this quarter. So we got to around 3% unit growth on a trailing basis. I think we've talked about this year, we would accelerate off of what we -- off of last year, which is what we thought was a low. And as you know, Q4 the year is always back-end weighted. So Q4 is a very, very busy quarter for us as we opened a bunch of restaurants.

I think as you go kind of around the world, and of course, international is the biggest driver of our growth. I think what's really encouraging for us and promising is as you look at our top 10 growth markets, we're seeing the paybacks get even better. We've talked about Cavex being around 4.5 years in our top 10 growth market. It's even ticking down. It's a lot of the markets that Josh had mentioned markets like Japan and Korea and even India you're seeing paybacks get better.

So that helps, I think, for this year, but that really helps set the runway for the longer term. I think as you kind of think about the home markets, there's obviously puts and takes. I think we've talked about Tims Canada accelerating, and we still feel good about that both this year and really into next year. and Fire House is doing great sub 4-year paybacks on those units, and we feel really good about that. I think kind of on the other side of it, Popeyes, we expect, will be a little bit softer than where we were last year on the unit growth side.

So I think that's sort of the puts and takes around the world, but we feel pretty good about the development pipeline. We're spending a lot of time with our franchisees, and they're excited. Ultimately, it's about profitability and getting the paybacks where they need to be and franchisees will develop.

Joshua Kobza

Yes. The only other thing I would add is One of the big drivers going into '27 and beyond is Burger King China further ramping up. And I think the important drivers of that are always going to be how the business is doing. And that's why we're really pleased with the performance so far this year, we're doing double-digit comps on top of double-digit in the prior year. That obviously has a big impact on improving the unit economics and make it make even more sense for our partners to ramp up the pace of growth. So the performance there gives us even more confidence about how we'll be able to accelerate further in '27.

Operator

Your next question comes from John Ivankoe with JPMorgan.

John Ivankoe

In your prepared remarks, you talked about Burger King, I think specifically Burger King achieving global scale to where it really made sense to kind of have it as an information sharing type of organization where you can pull the ideas out of 1 market apply globally or at least apply it to the U.S. So I wanted to see if there's anything specific, whether it's coming quarters or coming years. that we could potentially take a winning idea, for example, that might be occurring in Europe or parts of Asia and bring it to the U.S. that might make a tangible difference for customers and employees. Anything specific that we can talk about there.

Joshua Kobza

John, I'm really happy with how Tiago and the team are managing how we're doing this in international. I think it's really powerful in that -- we give a lot of the way to our big master franchisees to innovate and come up with new ideas, and we have some terrific CMOs who are very creative and do really cool stuff. And what we do is we try not to force a top-down idea. We let ideas bubble up. But once we find something that we think is really interesting, we're very open about sharing those ideas and we do it in a lot of different ways.

And then we let markets pick what's relevant to them, what ideas from other countries can make a lot of sense. And sometimes you have to adapt those a little bit. Some things that will work in Western Europe might not work in some of our Asia markets. So we're choiceful in kind of sharing those things. A couple of the ones that we've done in recent years are things like our gourmet series, some of our bigger patty burgers, that's an idea that started in a couple of markets and it has expanded.

We've also done some stuff like France came up with sliders. They call them baby burgers. And some other markets have chosen to use that. And we found some innovation around sauces to in some of our markets that others have grabbed on to. I'm not ready to share exactly which ones of those are going to come to the U.S. next year, but stay tuned. We hope to bring some exciting stuff in 2027.

Operator

Your next question comes from Sarah Senatore with Bank of America.

Sara Senatore

I wanted to ask about a comment, I think, Josh, that you made about working with the Tim's franchisees to work on like speed of service and visibility into restaurant fiendliness. I guess maybe 2 questions. One is, is this in response to customer feedback or more just continuous improvement? And then more broadly, as they think about how important the Tims business is to the portfolio you're talking about kind of 2% same-store sales, which is a nice improvement of what you've seen, but I would say probably pretty consistent with the long-term history of Tims and then fairly modest unit growth. I guess, what is the sort of ceiling on how fast Tims could grow just because as 40% of the EBITDA, it matters a lot to achieving that sort of 8% plus operating profit target you have? .

Joshua Kobza

Yes, Sarah. So first on some of the operational priorities, I would tell you, Axle is always focused on getting better. He grew up in restaurants. He is all over the details, and he always wants us to get better and better. And so we're always listening to guests, but also observing things as we spend a lot of time in the restaurants ourselves as we can tell, and we're always looking for any angle on things that we can get better at. So those are a couple of the priorities that we've highlighted for ourselves this year and into next to kind of refocus on some of those elements and make sure that we're exactly where we want to be. .

And I love Axl's focus on it, and he and his team are all over it. In terms of the growth profile of the Tims business, I'll go through each of the elements that you mentioned. First on the net restaurant growth, we still think that there is space for more Tims across Canada, and that's why you've seen us ramping up the pace of restaurant growth -- we did that this year, and I expect we'll grow a bit more. So I think we'll have some structural unit growth within just the Canada business.

And then on top of that, we certainly intend and have a goal to grow faster than the 2% over time. We want to be growing structurally into the PM daypart with cold beverages and growing our share of things like lunch and dinner food. So we need to make progress on those, but that's a big driver of growing faster than the 2% or so where we are today.

And the other piece of that, Tim's business is the U.S. That's the kind of the other big long-term structural growth driver where as we do a better and better job with Tims in the U.S., that can be an add-on to the pace of growth. So those are probably the 3 biggest levers I would think about to have Tim contribute to our kind of overall growth algorithm.

Sami Siddiqui

And Lauren, it's Amy. I would or sorry, I would just add that a couple of things. One is as we think about where a bunch of our CapEx is going in our long-term CapEx outlook. About half of the CapEx is actually going into Tims because we have a pretty sizable property business. So as we think about the ROIs on that capital, the ROIs and the flow-through to AOI tend to be very good on those real estate deals. And as we think about not only growing, as Josh mentioned, but growing the real estate makes tons of sense by being on those head leases.

We also have ancillary businesses that are just fantastic businesses Tim CPG business is a fantastic business. We're #1 on retail shelves in Canada. And Josh mentioned the Tims U.S. business as well. So there are a lot of other businesses that are connected to that top line growth that we feel really good about.

Operator

Your next question comes from Gregory Francfort with Guggenheim.

Gregory Francfort

Maybe, silly, the 8% profit growth that you guys have underline for the foreseeable future, I guess do you see as you kind of refranchised some of the restaurants, do you see yourself dipping below that in the next year or 2? And can you maybe just help frame that up kind of numbers wise? And then my question, I guess, more broadly is PIMS in Canada, as you accelerate unit growth to maybe 1%. How do you gain confidence that maybe that won't be cannibalistic to your existing base and it will be incremental, kind of maybe where you're growing? Or do you have an expectation for a cannibalization on that number, that would be helpful.

Joshua Kobza

Yes, on the 8% algorithm, I think a couple of things on sort of maintaining that 8%. First off, year-to-date, we've been right around 8%, and we're really proud over -- as you think about the last 2 or 3 years, we've been around that 8%. Now as you think about restaurant holdings and how the refranchising impact that, when we report, we obviously report on the organic franchise segments. So RH is excluded from that, and we have an intercompany royalty and property set up. So you see the Rotation property in the kind of core segments.

Now it will get a little bit trickier when we end up sunsetting RH, which will be at the end of 2027. And we will -- we've talked about a little bit absorbing those restaurants the remaining Carrols restaurants into the Burger King U.S. and Canada P&L. We anticipate that will be between 300 and 500 restaurants when we absorb it into the P&L, probably getting towards the lower end of that range. So as those come into the core, which would be technically in 2028, they would impact it.

But the performance at Carrols Restaurant Holdings has been fantastic, and we feel really good about the direction of that business. From a bottom line EPS perspective, we anticipate refranchising to be a couple of pennies of dilution this year to the EPS. But from a broader 8% algorithm perspective, we really are focused on the core franchise segments rather than RH.

Sami Siddiqui

And then to your question, Greg, on the Tims restaurant growth in Canada, A lot of that growth is coming in place that might have new developments, and that can come across the country. So you can think about maybe like a new residential development that's happening on the outskirts of Toronto that has a retail plaza attached to it. We want to be there. If there's going to be a big community in a big retail center, we want to be there.

And so you have those -- whether it's in Toronto or out west in Alberta, there's a lot of that construction happening, and we're going to want to be a part of it. Each time we do that, we're doing pretty detailed cannibalization modeling to make sure that those units are not going to excessively take away sales from any other units around them. So we look at it very carefully to make sure that the returns make a lot of sense for us and the franchisees. And I think our team is doing a great job with that.

Operator

Your next question comes from Andrew Charles with TD Cowen.

Andrew Charles

Great. Sami, I wanted to ask about international AOI. -- segment same-store sales and development remains on track, but the flow-through to AOI wasn't as strong as we expect in the third quarter. So I'm just curious with international OI margin is decelerating over the last 3 quarters, it is explained by the onetime items or perhaps the growth in the segment is skewing to lower royalty and lower volume markets? .

Sami Siddiqui

Andrew, Yes, actually, as you think about -- first off, the International segment, continues. It's amazing stick. I think it's now 22 consecutive quarters of positive same-store sales, taking share across a bunch of the key markets. And so just the business performance has been fantastic from a top line perspective and the bottom line perspective. As you think about the flow-through this quarter from the top line to the bottom line, there was a little bit of some onetime noise in the numbers. Again, we talked about -- we talked about around $10 million of G&A increases across the consolidated business. About half of that was due to some onetime expenses legal expenses that were concentrated in our international business. Those are onetime those are not expected to recur.

So I think that might be what you're alluding to as you think about the flow-through for the quarter.

Operator

Your next question comes from Chris O'Cull with Baird.

Unknown Analyst

I had a follow-up question to an earlier 1 on Tims Canada. We've seen some signs of softer start here in October in the U.S. Are you seeing anything similar across the industry in Canada? And also, if you could just provide some more color on what drove the pickup in same-store sales at Tims Canada and maybe how confident you are that, that momentum can continue as comparisons ease.

Joshua Kobza

Chris, we haven't seen a big change in the Canada performance recently. So nothing new to call out in the last month or so, they're pretty stable, I would say. In terms of the big drivers, so I would say the couple of big ones are some of the success on cold beverages. -- things like Matcha, it turned out to be really incremental. We're bringing in new guests that are generally younger. They skew more female. They come in the afternoon more often, and it's a little bit higher check, as you've seen with a lot of the cold beds.

Interesting thing we've realized with Mace, it peaks on the weekends. So it's a pretty different behavioral profile from our traditional kind of hot brewed coffee in the morning. So that one's kind of interesting. And then we also just recently launched our energy infusers with Monster Zero which is the most popular energy drink in Canada, and that's been a big hit, too. Again, trying to drive the business with younger guests and kind of getting outside our core demographic during our lower traffic period.

So those couple of things have been decent AUVs, but highly incremental, and that's helping us to drive a bit of incremental growth. And the other big piece is just more success on the food side. That's something that we've been working on figuring out for a couple of years now. And it's a category that was negative for us earlier in the years, and it's kind of stepped up progressively through the year from Q1 to Q2. And now in Q3, we really started to see some growth out of that. So I would say those 2 were the biggest contributors, and they're informing a lot of our thinking about where we go from here and what we're going to work on next year in 2027.

Operator

Your next question comes from Brian Harbour with Morgan Stanley.

Brian Harbour

When you think about these collaborations, right, I mean, I think clearly, the they can work very well. I know some are kind of backing off them, right? Some -- I think still continue to like those. What's your kind of philosophy on that? I mean do you still view this as a good way to bring in maybe some of those lapsed users to Burger King, is it kind of -- do you think you'll maintain this pace as you go forward? Because look, that's something that's important to families. Like what's your thinking about that over time? .

Joshua Kobza

Brian, it's a really interesting topic and 1 that I think our Burger King team has done a great job on, and you saw Tim's now working on I think there's a couple of things that I think are critical to them working really well. First, you've got to take the right ones that match -- that are kind of good brand collaborations that -- for each of the brands. And that will be different for Burger King versus a -- so you've got to pick things that have brand fit.

And we've tried to pick ones that where possible, where they can appeal to a large guest demographic. So some of them appeal to kids, but it's even better if they can have multigenerational appeal. And I think some of the ones that have really done great have had that multigenerational fuel. The other thing I would -- that I have to give the BK team and Tom and Joel a lot of credit for us. I think we're starting to do these IP collaborations very well. We're extremely thoughtful about the menu innovation. Our culinary teams do a fantastic job with a lot of creative ideas about how we make -- how we tie the 2 brands together, and we do that across a variety of menu items that give people a lot of reasons to come in.

But we're thoughtful about other aspects, too, things like the packaging. If you go back to our Spongebob collaboration in last December, we did some really neat things on the packaging. So I think our teams have just been really thoughtful about being comprehensive and doing very high quality, very collaborative work on how we execute those and that drives interest.

To your point, it's 1 of the points you made, Brian, it's really valuable, I think, with guests in 2 respects. One, we're bringing a bunch of people back to the restaurant. We might give them a reason to visit that they didn't have before. that causes them to give us another try. And a lot of those folks are coming back to the restaurants, and they're very pleasantly surprised with the changes they see, whether that's a new restaurant or improved and more consistent operations. So I think it's a great way to bring lapsed guests back.

And 1 of the most exciting things that we've seen over this past year is our retention and revisit rates with Burger King have improved markedly, which I think is a very clear sign that when we bring people back, the underlying operations improvements are causing them to return again. The last piece I would say on this is that those IP collaborations are a big part of our effort to drive the family business. And I mentioned some of the stats on the King Junior meals, but we're really trying to bring families back in the restaurant. I think we're seeing some early success. But there is a long way to go on that front. We have a lot of different initiatives aimed at, and I think that could be a driver for many years to come.

Operator

Next question comes from Chris Carill with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Christopher Carril

Thanks for the question. Josh, you highlighted the rapid growth of Popeyes international system-wide sales over the last couple of years. But Sami, you did mention Popeyes unit growth may be a little softer versus last year, if I heard that correctly. Can you help us understand the dynamics there and maybe provide any additional or updated thoughts on how you're thinking about Popeyes contribution to international unit growth over the medium to long term?

Sami Siddiqui

Yes, Chris, thank you for the question. And I should clarify. I think when I was speaking to unit growth as we kind of approach year-end, I was talking about Popeyes in North America, which would be -- which would decelerate a little bit from kind of where we landed last year. But as we think about the Popeyes International business, -- it's been an incredible growth story. Really, as you think about -- actually, if you go back to when Popeyes became part of RBI in 2017 and you look at where international systems sales are today, I think they've increased by sevenfold. I think now we're at around $2 billion in system sales.

And you look around the world at what Popeyes is doing on the international side, and it's really impressive. We've talked a little bit about it's the fastest-growing Western QSR brand -- or sorry, the of Western QSR brands and really just continued to build on momentum in markets like the U.K., in India, in really across a bunch of the markets that we've been entering including now China, where we're seeing a lot of positive traction. As you know, we ownership of that business a little while ago. This was our first quarter where we saw positive 4-wall margins, and we're starting to see paybacks in that business get a lot better.

So we're really, really excited for what's happening on the Popeyes International side. I think our offering and our differentiated chicken is something that guests in these markets want. We see it in the long lines and the amazing guest reviews and feedback when we enter. And we're going to continue hitting the gas on Popeyes International. I think in the past that we laid out the 5% unit growth continuing to accelerate Popeyes in the international markets is a big part of that growth.

Joshua Kobza

Yes. If I could just add a couple just on the international a little bit further. I'd say some of the markets that are starting to get to scale are seeing really tremendous results, places like Brazil and India, our Central European markets. Those markets are doing really remarkable levels of same-store sales and their restaurant level margins are getting better and better. It's something we saw we were in London with all those partners there. So I expect to see those markets continue to grow a lot, and now we're adding more and more markets every year as there's a lot of enthusiasm in demand to be part of the Popeyes International system.

So I think if anything, the Popeyes international business will become a bigger and bigger contributor to our net restaurant growth over the next couple of years.

Operator

We have reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Josh for closing remarks.

Joshua Kobza

Well, thank you all very much for joining us today. We're very pleased with the results for the quarter and thankful to all of our teams to our franchisees for the great work that they're doing all around the world. We appreciate your time. Have a great day, and we'll talk to you next quarter.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.