Disney Parks May Decrease Food Portions as Cost-Cutting Measure

11/11/2021 09:42 am EST

During yesterday's earning call, Disney executives discussed potential ways to further increase profits, which may include a cut in food portions at the parks. Yesterday, Disney reported that park revenue had increased 99% in Q4 2021 (which comprises the months of July through September) compared to the previous year, in part because of increased activity and park attendance from the pandemic. However, as a corporation, Disney is always looking for ways to increase profits, and one area Disney is looking at is to decrease the size of food portions at their theme parks. "I was talking to our parks senior team about things that we could do there," noted Disney CFO Christine McCarthy when asked how the parks were dealing with rising inflation. "There are lots of things that are worth talking about. We can adjust suppliers. We can substitute products. We can cut portion size which is probably good for some people's waistlines." 

McCarthy did note that across-the-board price changes were unlikely at this time, as Disney had a number of options to help mitigate rising costs. "We can look at pricing where necessary," McCarthy said. "We aren't going to go just straight across and increase prices. We're going to try to get the algorithm right to cut where we can and not necessarily do things the same way. We're producing technology to produce some of the operating cost. That gives us to absorb some inflation. We're trying to use our heads here to come up with a way to kind of mitigate some of the challenges that we have."

Disney did note that some of their other park initiatives were showing early signs of success. For example, Disney CEO Bob Chapek noted that nearly a third of guests at Walt Disney World Resort were upgrading to the controversial Genie+ service. The add-on services gives visitors access to the Lightning Lanes, a truncated queue that skips the wait on most rides. Genie+ costs $15 per ticket per day at Walt Disney World. Several popular rides also have individual Lightning Lane passes that can be purchased separately from Genie+.

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