Once the king of pizza fast food, it seems that he has fallen to the altar. In 2020, under the impact of the new crown epidemic, Pizza Hut announced that 300 stores in the United States are planned to be permanently closed, and more than 900 stores will be sold. What happened to the "Little Red House" that was yearning for now?
So far, Pizza Hut has been in the Chinese market for thirty years, in these thirty years, the times have changed, what kind of glory has Pizza Hut experienced, and why is the scenery no longer there? Touch the quality, discover the future, welcome to watch the 100,000 brand stories of "Pizza Hut".
Although China did not welcome Pizza Hut until 1990, the story of Pizza Hut has been around since the 1950s. In 1958, in Kansas, the Carney brothers, who were still in college, often went to their parents' grocery store to help out in their spare time. There was a tavern next to the grocery store, and the landlady of the tavern thought the drinkers were too noisy, so she planned to let the young and capable Carney brothers rent the cottage and run a pizza restaurant instead. The Carney brothers were moved by the landlady's persuasion, and they borrowed $600 from their parents and rented the cottage to sell pizza.
At that time, the restaurant only had enough seats for 25 seats, and the sign on the eaves was only enough for 9 letters. Pizza occupies five letters in one word, and the remaining can only fill in four more, how to name their own pizza restaurant, the Carney brothers are difficult. At this time, the relative at the door said: The restaurant looks like a hut. The Carney brothers had the idea to name the pizzeria in this cottage "Pizzahut", which means pizza hut. At that time, the roof of the hut was red, so the red roof became the symbol and symbol of Pizza Hut. In this way, Pizza Hut was born in this series of drama.
Although the cabin was small, the Carney brothers managed it meticulously, designing the crowded environment into a compact and comfortable look, ensuring that pizza was made fresh every day, and the flavors were prepared, and gradually made a name for itself. In 1959, Pizza Hut formally established the company in Kansas, inviting Dick Hassel to participate in the management as a franchisee. In this way, Pizza Hut quickly embarked on a professional path from a small restaurant.
As the business grew, in 1965 Pizza Hut launched their first TELEVISION commercial, "Putt-Putt to Pizza Hut," which deepened viewers' impression of the brand with rhyming and catchy advertising slogans.
The young Carney brothers are very brainy, they dare to do it, and they do a great job of brand marketing at Pizza Hut. When the Texas branch opened in 1967, Pizza Hut baked the world's largest pizza in one fell swoop, 6 feet in diameter, equivalent to more than 1.8 meters, which was enough to win the eyeballs, so that the whole country saw the pizzeria's bravado, interesting style and strength.
Similarly, in order to further build brand identity and promote the cultural symbol of Pizza Hut, from 1969, Pizza Hut fully promoted red roofs in all branches, using a consistent "red roof" logo, successfully making Pizza Hut's brand deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in the 60s.
With the opening of the Canadian branch in 1968 and the Mexican branch in 1969, Pizza Hut went north and south, conquered the entire North American market, and completed the brand layout of the whole North America. In just a decade of its establishment, Pizza Hut has become a veritable large-scale pizza restaurant chain.
Then, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates... Step by step, Pizza Hut is going all over the world, with stores all over the world. Pizza Hut also successfully went public in the 1970s and merged with PepsiCo, and under the large layout of PepsiCo, it hitched a ride on the express train and developed in the direction of global development.
Pizza Hut is not only about doing business, but also about society. In 1988, Pizza Hut's reward reading program was recognized by President Reagan. The following year, the "Join Pizza Hut Jobs" program was launched across the United States, recruiting more than 10,000 employees with disabilities, which was considered to be the largest philanthropic initiative pioneered in the restaurant industry at that time. Pizza Hut also delivered pizza for the White House for the first time, serving a "Reading is The Foundation" reception hosted by First Lady Barbara Bush. Pizza Hut walked from a crowded little red room into the White House.
In fact, the history of pizza is very long. As early as 997 AD, a queen of the ancient Roman Empire came to Naples, and in order to welcome her arrival, the locals put some tomato sauce and spinach on the flour dough and roasted it on the fire until golden brown, which is the earliest record of pizza.
Why are so many traditional pizzerias with a long history inferior to a ten-year-old American "pizza house"? Although Pizza Hut does not seem to have any advantages from the authenticity of taste, authenticity and the purity of craftsmanship, the key to Pizza Hut's "must win" lies in the system of standards and scale.
At Pizza Hut, the portion size, time and temperature of the noodles, the specifications and methods of making the dough, the fermentation temperature and time of the dough, the amount and proportion of the filling, the temperature and time of baking... All need to be strictly in accordance with the operating regulations. Therefore, Pizza Hut can control the taste within a unified standard as much as possible, and ensure that the taste, color and portion size of all Pizza Hut stores are consistent, so that it is easier to win by quantity and quickly promote the scale of store radiation.
This model is not uncommon in today's fast food restaurants, but in the pizza catering industry, pizza hut is the first to standardize production on such a large scale. As a result, a huge market spanning several continents has been conquered by Pizza Hut with standardized processes and the efficient catering it brings.
However, although Pizza Hut is such a modeled restaurant chain, it also respects the diversity of its cuisine internally. For example, when ordering pizza, cheese can be added or decreased; since 2008, the menu has been changed every six months, more than 20% of each time; in recent years, Pizza Hut has also launched a variety of platter pizzas, while adding more flavors.
From the first traditional thin-skinned pizza in 1958 to today's five main products, iron plate pizza, thin crisp pizza, hand-to-throw pizza, Sesame pizza and "Big New Yorker" pizza, Pizza Hut's pizza has emerged in an endless stream, and has been well received by generations of consumers. Pizza Hut's slogan "Pizza & More" also marks Pizza Hut's goal of focusing on pizza, continuously introducing new products and expanding the scope of meals.
With Pizza Hut's global expansion step by step, in 1990, Beijing welcomed China's first Pizza Hut restaurant. The translation name "Pizza Hut", which combines transliteration and paraphrasing, can be described as one of the models of chinese names translated by foreign brands. "Pizza Hut" has become pizza hut's main brand culture in the Chinese market.
At the time, China opened its doors to a large number of foreign companies and cultures, and a large-scale, standard-producing pizza chain was favored by a large number of Chinese consumers. It can be said that in the early years, Pizza Hut had almost no competitors in the Chinese market.
At that time, Pizza Hut was very popular, especially the salad could be refilled for free with wooden bowls, which was different from today's ordering model, and the price was very affordable. At the same time, Pizza Hut's service is still very thoughtful, and the restaurant environment is also very Western,000, making Pizza Hut a good memory for a generation. With the opening of the Shanghai store, Suzhou store and Hangzhou store, Pizza Hut has also successfully swept the world's most populous Chinese market.
However, today's Pizza Hut is not as popular as it was then. Once, Pizza Hut was a mecca for young men and women to fall in love and dating, but now, Pizza Hut is no longer mysterious, the quality of service and food products has declined significantly, and its competitiveness is much less than before. What changed Pizza Hut?
First of all, the environment is no longer the same as before. Once upon a time, in the Chinese market, the pizza catering industry was a blank slate, and no one could make such delicious pizza as Pizza Hut, and many people had never even eaten pizza.
With the development of the economy and the improvement of living standards, pizzerias and other Western restaurants have emerged in an endless stream. Speaking professionally, Pizza Hut is inferior; at a price point, Pizza Hut is also much more expensive than the more affordable pizzerias. With the passage of time, the technical threshold for opening a pizzeria has long ceased to exist, and with the increase in cost, the price advantage of Pizza Hut has also been exhausted, and although the food has been innovating, for many years, there has been no iconic fist product that can retain people's hearts. As a result, competitiveness will naturally decline.
Secondly, also because of the increase in costs, Pizza Hut, which wants to continue to maintain profits, can only try to reduce costs. In this way, with the original store scale, Pizza Hut can only take the food and service to open the knife. Service standards are getting lower and lower. From the original formal sense of Western food ceremony to today's "casual catering" culture, the specifications of restaurants are getting lower and lower in the minds of consumers, and they have gradually lost their previous mystery.
At the same time, there are more and more phenomena such as pizza baking paste and untidy tableware. Under the pressure of cost, Pizza Hut has gradually become a pizzeria with a first-class brand, a first-class store and a slightly backward service and food.
Nowadays, with the rise of takeaway catering, some western-style fast food chains that are convenient to carry are gradually no longer requiring excessive store costs, and the price threshold is gradually lowered. Therefore, the activities of traditional fast food brands such as KFC and McDonald's have also been visibly increased.
Although in terms of delivery costs, Pizza Hut and the first two are the same, and the degree of enjoying the delivery dividend is relatively limited, but in terms of the activity strength of the physical store, Pizza Hut is still slightly inferior. What's more, in terms of the grade and cost of the store, Pizza Hut costs a lot more than a simple fast food restaurant.
When their own product competitiveness is declining, takeaway has a strong impact on traditional store-led restaurants; and when others make changes, Pizza Hut seems to be slower - it is difficult to maintain the quality of the restaurant and the quality of service under the premise of high cost, and it is difficult to lower the position, greatly transformed, and fallen into an embarrassing situation of dilemma.
In 2021, with the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the physical catering industry has been hit harder than ever. Pizza Hut announced plans to permanently close 300 stores in the U.S. as Pizza Hut's parent company, Yum Group, faces bankruptcy at NPC International, the largest licensed distributor in the United States.
It is reported that NPC International has a total of 1227 Pizza Hut stores in the United States, in addition to closing 300, the remaining 927 stores will also be sold. Yum Group, a global large-scale restaurant group with the three aces of KFC, Pizza Hut and Tuckerstar, seems to have repeatedly encountered difficulties in catering services and business operations. The pizza hut problem is actually a microcosm of the whole Yum. After that, there is an opportunity for the brand brother to take you to talk about the Yum Group.
Fortunately, for domestic Pizza Hut stores, the information given by Yum and Pizza Hut is positive, and the effective control of the epidemic is undoubtedly a big positive for the resumption of normal business of Domestic Pizza Hut, and the impact of international stores is also relatively limited. However, it is undeniable that the epidemic situation abroad is still serious, and the catering service industry is in trouble. How to break through the siege, regroup and wait for the challenge of Pizza Hut is still very difficult.