Pizza Hut launches Detroit-style pizza because the turnaround continues

Pizza Hut Detroit Double Pepperoni Pizza

Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut is jumping on the Detroit-style pan pizza trend, which is set to continue its turnaround in 2021 after strong sales growth last year.

Starting Tuesday, the Yum Brands chain will be selling four different types of Detroit-style pizza for a limited time. Prices start at $ 10.99.

Detroit style pizza is characterized by its rectangular shape, thick crust, cheese all through, and tomato sauce that covers the cheese and other toppings. The pizza has grown in popularity over the past decade when Michiganders opened pizzerias elsewhere in the US. Privately owned and headquartered in Detroit, Little Caesars was the first national pizza chain to bring the trend to the masses in 2013.

Buddy’s Pizza is credited with making the dish with blue steel pans from local automobile factories 75 years ago. In 2018, CapitalSpring, a private equity firm specializing in restaurant brands and franchisees, invested an undisclosed amount in Buddy’s to capitalize on the trend through nationwide expansion.

“Detroit-style pizza is the fastest growing trend in pizza,” said David Graves, chief brand officer of Pizza Hut US. “It’s not just a Midwestern thing anymore.”

He added that Pizza Hut customers expect the chain to give their own views on food trends and asked them for a Detroit-style pizza.

“I’ve never seen our franchisees so excited about a launch,” said Graves.

The chain has spent more than a year perfecting their own version, even creating a new tomato sauce that is only used for this type of pizza.

The Detroit Double Pepperoni contains 80 slices of hot peppers, more than half of which are hollow hot peppers. The Double Cheesy Pizza offers two types of cheese, while the Meaty Deluxe comes with bacon, Italian sausage and hollow hot peppers. The Supremo pizza consists of green peppers, Italian sausage and red onions.

It will start when the demand for pizza approaches a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Pizza Hut and its competitors Domino’s Pizza and Papa John’s saw sales growth in the same business in the US in the second and third quarters of 2020. For Pizza Hut in particular, the crisis has helped accelerate the transition to more delivery and take-out sales and fewer dine-in customers.

Yum’s shares were roughly unchanged over the past year, which translates to a market value of $ 31.8 billion. The company’s US locations have recovered relatively quickly from the coronavirus pandemic, but international restaurants have recovered more slowly.