Pizza Hut’s Detroit Double Pepperoni Pizza
pizza hut
Pizza Hut is jumping into the Detroit-style pan-pizza trend because it wants to continue its turnaround in 2021 after strong growth last year.
Starting Tuesday, the Yum Brands chain will be selling four different Detroit-style pizzas for a limited time, starting at $ 10.99.
Detroit-style pizza is characterized by its rectangular shape, thick crust, edge-to-edge cheese and tomato sauce that covers the cheese and other toppings. Pizza has become popular over the past decade when Michiganders opened pizzerias elsewhere in the United States. Little Caesars, which is privately owned and headquartered in Detroit, was the first national pizza chain to take the trend toward the masses in 2013.
Buddy’s Pizza admitted 75 years ago that he used the dish with blue steel pans from the local car factories. In 2018, CapitalSpring, a private equity firm specializing in restaurant brands and franchisees, invested an unknown amount in Buddy’s to capitalize on the trend by expanding nationwide.
“Detroit-style pizza is the fastest growing trend in pizza,” said David Graves, chief trading officer of Pizza Hut US. “It’s not the only thing in the Midwest anymore.”
He added that the Pizza Hut customers of the chain expect to give their own trends on food trends, asking for a Detroit-style pizza.
“I’ve never seen our franchisees more excited for a launch,” Graves said.
The chain has spent more than a year perfecting its own version and has even created a new tomato sauce that will only be used on that type of pizza.
The Detroit Double Pepperoni contains 80 slices of pepperoni, more than half of which are pepperoni. The Double Cheesy pizza contains two types of cheese, while the Meaty Deluxe contains bacon, Italian sausage and pepperoni. The Supremo pizza is served with green peppers, Italian sausage and red onions.
The launch comes as the pizza category approaches a year in rising demand due to the coronavirus pandemic. Pizza Hut and its competitors Domino’s Pizza and Papa John’s all reported the same sales growth in the US during the second and third quarters of 2020. Especially for Pizza Hut, the crisis helped accelerate the transition to more delivery and take-off sales and fewer food customers.
Shares in Yum have been roughly the same over the past year, giving a market value of $ 31.8 billion. The company’s US branches recovered relatively quickly from the coronavirus pandemic, but its international restaurants experienced a slower recovery.