Pizza had been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic and it made sense. People were stuck at home, in quarantine, with restaurants around the country shut down. And chains like Domino’s, Pizza Hut and Papa Johns had delivery.
The post-pandemic era has been a different story. Sales have been a slog for big pizza companies over the past two years, forcing companies into major initiatives to reverse those trends.
And now, two of the four major U.S. pizza chains are looking for new top executives, following the departure last week of Pizza Hut U.S. President David Graves and the hiring of Papa Johns CEO Rob Lynch by the burger chain Shake Shack.
(Check out RB’s Same-Store Sales Tracker.)
Their replacements will face a market that is more difficult than it’s ever been, one that has been upended by the growing presence of DoorDash and Uber Eats.
To get an idea of how the pizza sector is doing, we looked at same-store sales data for the three publicly traded pizza chains and compared them with another pandemic darling, Wingstop.
We’ve long viewed Wingstop as a competitor to pizza, because many chicken wing occasions are the same as pizza occasions, and many pizza chains sell wings as a result.
Look at the result here:
Here is another look at the numbers, with each chain featured:
In simple terms, Wingstop obliterated each of the pizza chains last year, and has outperformed all of them in each of the past six years, except for Papa Johns in 2021 and Domino’s in 2018.
To be sure, Wingstop is the youngest and the smallest of these chains and has the most growth ahead. It was also able to add a chicken sandwich lineup to its menu that juiced sales last year. But it also has considerably higher average unit volumes than any of the pizza chains.
And it may represent the environment the pizza sector now finds itself in. Six years ago, Wingstop didn’t have much third-party delivery to speak of. Today, delivery represents about 30% of that chain’s sales.
Delivery of any kind was a limited market before the growth of third-party services six years ago. While more people are ordering delivery on more occasions, it still goes to reason that some of that business would come from existing players. And pizza was the biggest provider of delivery in the pre-pandemic era.
Major pizza chains have responded in part by joining the third-party party. But the data suggests that doing so isn’t a panacea. Pizza Hut has had third-party delivery since 2022. Papa Johns has had it since 2018.
All three of the major publicly traded pizza chains have substantial sales initiatives. Domino’s, which is as bullish about the coming year as it’s been in some time, is joining the third-party delivery bandwagon. It has boosted service and found more ways to market its business. The company generated positive delivery transactions in the fourth quarter for the first time in at least two years.
Papa Johns, which saw sales weaken late last year, has reached a new agreement with its franchisees to boost national marketing and plans a series of new menu items this year.
Pizza Hut, meanwhile, plans to hire a new U.S. president and is now being overseen by Aaron Powell, the chain’s global CEO.