Pizza Hut revamps products in quality-oriented Initiative

Nation's Restaurant News, May 5, 1997 by Mark Hamstra

DALLAS - In what the chain calls its largest initiative since the introduction of pan pizza in 1983, Pizza Hut is rolling out an across-the-board ingredient upgrade in an effort to position itself as the quality leader in the niche.

'The first step in turning Pizza Hut around is to go back to the basics,' said Pizza Hut president David Novak, dressed in military regalia at a 'declaration of war' press conference on the air craft carrier/museum U.S.S. Intrepid in New York. 'The customers say they love our brand, but they need to see us be the leader in quality. We need to go the quality route.'

The effort, in which Pizza Hut has invested $50 million on research, training and a systemwide tune-up of its ovens, involves the use of a new, thicker sauce, fresh mushrooms instead of canned, red onions instead of yellow and thicker slices of all vegetable toppings. Improved meat toppings also have been introduced in recent months. To promote the effort, a new series of commercials featuring Novak as the spokesman was scheduled to break May 1 on national TV during episodes of 'Friends' and 'ER.' In addition, a million-piece coupon drop will be used to encourage trial of the new products, and other radio event tie-ins also are in the works.

'This is a relaunch of the brand,' said Pizza Hut's senior vice president of marketing, William Cobb. 'May 1 will be remembered as the day we relaunched Pizza Hut.'

Richard Divelbliss, chairman of the International Pizza Hut Franchisees Association and a 31-unit operator based in Madison, Wis., said franchisees had a lot of input in the initiative, and 'about 90 percent or better agree' with the effort. He credited the chain's research and development director, Surinder Kumar, with developing an improved product that can be executed at the store level.

The initiative also will focus on giving more responsibility to the pizza cooks by motivating them to become 'certified pizza artists' and having them compare a product visually with a color photo before putting it in the oven. In conjunction with the product upgrades, Pizza Hut also streamlined its regional menu variations, reducing the number of 'menu markets' from 123 to seven.

- Mark Hamstra