Dive Brief:
- Pizza Hut has added a menu category at participating restaurants with the launch of Pizza Hut Melts, the company announced Tuesday.
- The menu item, which costs $6.99, consists of two slices of pizza made with Thin N’ Crispy crust that are folded over and baked, and served with dipping sauce.
- Earlier this year, Pizza Hut rolled out a line of oven-baked pastas and brought back its popular Detroit-style pizza LTO in September.
Dive Insight:
Pizza Hut Melts should prove easy for restaurants to execute as the category uses existing ingredients. The handheld item is meant to appeal to customers who are looking for an individual meal instead of an entire pizza, which could draw more interest during the lunch daypart.
Pizza Hut’s U.S. business has been struggling to grow same-store sales this year, largely due to operational challenges to its delivery business, Yum Brands CEO David Gibbs said during an August earnings call. In Q2, Pizza Hut’s same-store sales dropped 4%. As of the end of Q2, the company has introduced third-party delivery service at about 55% of its U.S. locations as a way to supplement its driver workforce, while 70% of eligible stores have also opted into using at least one aggregator marketplace as a way to reach more customers, Gibbs said.
This menu launch is a superficially similar move to Papa Johns’ launch of its Papadia menu item, which helped boost same-store sales by 17.6% in 2020. Papa Johns has invested in new menu items this year as well, adding Papa Bowls to its offerings during the summer. Papa Johns has also boosted its delivery workforce through third-party services, and was one of the only top pizza delivery companies to post same-store sales growth during the first half of the year.
