Sales manager: Last year the total number of meals sold in our company' s restaurants was much higher than it was the year before  Obviously consumers find our meals desirable  Accountant: If you look at individual restaurants, however, you find that the number of meals sold actually decreased substantially at every one of our restaurants that was in operation both last year and the year before
The desirability of our meals to consumers has clearly decreased, given that this group of restaurants -- the only ones for which we have sales figures that permit a comparison between last year and the year before -- demonstrates a trend toward fewer sales
The company opened at least one new restaurant in the last two years.