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created about 1 year ago | Tagged: |
Alli D
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“Artisan” pizza. To boost sales, the “artisan” label is being attached to pizza, as well as breakfast sandwiches, chips, and more. Domino’s has introduced an entire line of artisan pies, and the chain is so confident in its offerings that it’s announced that customers aren’t allowed to add or remove toppings from them.
“Fast casual” pizza. Inspired by the success of “fast casual” restaurants such as Chipotle and Panera Bread, mall staple Sbarro is trying out new made-to-order pasta dishes and tweaking pizza recipes, adjusting seasonings and using better cheese to make them more artisan-y. The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, predicts that 800 Degrees, a pizzeria in Westwood backed by the same people as the popular Umami Burger, will one day become “a staple of every food court in America.” The formula for its success, and the reason lines are out the door for its pizza, is this: “high-quality pizza reformulated as fast-food — cheap, delicious, made with sustainably grown ingredients, infinitely customizable” that is “in and out of the ferociously hot wood-burning oven almost before you have gotten to the cash register.”
Store-brand frozen pizza that’s actually edible. Not long ago, the phrase “generic frozen pizza” probably called to mind a cardboard-like substance topped in Ragu and a white-ish cheese that tasted about as good as paper. Now, though, word has spread that store-brand foods score high in blind taste tests, and grocery chains such as Kroger and Safeway have been able to sell high-quality “premium” store-brand frozen pizzas, even though they’re not that much cheaper than the better-known brands. The Associated Press recently noted that “no-name” supermarket brands are also more likely to be made with top-notch organic ingredients, and unusual products such as Whole Foods’ frozen pesto pizza are popping up.
Ordering pizza online. Last December, Domino’s took more than 1 million digital orders in a single week for the first time ever, as more and more Americans became comfortable ordering pizzas without picking up the phone.
More pizza consumption overall. The research firm Technomic reveals that 41% of consumers now eat pizza at least once a week, compared to just 26% two years ago. All methods of gathering pizza have increased, and now, at least once a month 49% of consumers buy pizza at supermarkets, 45% of consumers enjoy dine-in pizza, and 68% of consumers order carry-out pizza. That’s a lot of pizza.
