Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has major plans for growth, expecting to bring in as much as 50 percent more revenue within the next five years.
The company outlined those goals at its annual shareholder’s meeting Thursday in Orlando. Darden generated $7.5 billion in sales last year, and chief executive officer Clarence Otis said that number could grow between $3 and $4 billion by 2016.
Much of that could come from its existing restaurant chains, but Darden also is on the lookout for new ventures, “which we’ll either acquire or develop in collaboration with creative partners,” Otis said.
Otis acknowledged, though, that the economy “is likely to remain much weaker for the balance of our fiscal year than any of us would like it to be.”