On edge.
That’s how many pizza industry forecasters qualify the national state of mind at this moment in time, as we first began exploring in the initial part of this year-end Pizza Puzzler rounding up industry experts’ best 2020 strategy suggestions.
And because of the uptight state most Americans are currently in over just about everything from the presidency to their personal budgets, restaurant industry experts are guiding pizza brand leaders to take a cautious approach to everything from menu innovations to major operational changes in the year ahead. Instead, they advocate that brands focus on food that reassures and comforts, and a simplified overall customer experience.
In today’s report, we plunge a little more deeply into the inner workings of the pizza pie itself in the year ahead to get an idea of how brands can keep customers and employees resting easily despite current cultural turmoil. And it all starts with some stats that first reared their ugly head earlier this year.
“Some of these brands are clearly suffering from wider issues in an increasingly competitive landscape, but there are also positive reasons for the decline. Just as e-commerce impacted in-store visits, the improvement of delivery capabilities on fast pickup has created a very valuable channel for these brands. “
-Placer.ai
A dip in visits at top pizza brands
Analytics firm, Placer.ai, found evidence of some of the effects of that documented national anxiety as it relates to pizza restaurant business in recent research the company conducted in response to questions from this website around traffic at seven top U.S. pizza brands over the first 11 months of this year. Placer.ai then compared that information with that from same period in 2017 and 2018.
The brands — Blaze, Domino’s, Mountain Mike’s, Papa John’s, Pie Five, Pizza Hut and Pizza Inn — all collectively averaged visit growth in 2017 and 2018 of 4.2%, Placer.ai reported. But, in 2019 that smile-inducing course reversed, according to Placer.ai, with the same group of seven brands turning in an average decline in visits of 6.9% for the first 11 months of this year.
Bad news, right? Maybe not.
“Some of these brands are clearly suffering from wider issues in an increasingly competitive landscape, but there are also positive reasons for the decline. Just as e-commerce impacted in-store visits, the improvement of delivery capabilities on fast pickup has created a very valuable channel for these brands,” Placer.ai said in a statement regarding its findings to this website.
“It’s especially important for a QSR pizza sector that is widely synonymous with delivery. Rather than speaking to a significant challenge, the decline in visits may be a testament to the utilization of technology to improve delivery.”
Nonetheless, many brands will want to make that expensive real estate they’re sitting on while creating all those delivery orders, pay off a bit more. That’s why Mood Media Senior Vice President of North America Business Development Jaime Bettencourt believes pizza brands should make their marketing appeal for dine-in patrons an essential area for action in the coming year.
“With restaurant owners and franchises facing competition from food delivery apps, in 2020 restaurants must continue to find new ways to entice customers to ‘dine-in.’ Seventy-eight percent of consumers recently stated that ‘an enjoyable in-store atmosphere’ is a key deciding factor in if they will return to a place of business,” Bettencourt told Pizza Marketplace.
“Therefore, pizza brands should focus on building a sense of community with their customers, offering more personalized experiences, and ensuring that elements -— including innovative tech — are applied to offer a greater sense of convenience and engagement. With delivery as an option, pizza brands should focus efforts on entertaining its local community, such as offering interactive experiences, custom events and dynamic incentives for sports fans, which will in turn entice customers to order-in and remain loyal to the brand.”
‘As the Pie Turns’ — Brands’ best bets for evolving the pizza in 2020
But what about the actual pie itself. After all, it’s the real customer magnet for any pizza brand (along with the obligatory beer, of course). So, where should pizza brand leadership put its focus for not just staying “up-to-trend” in the pizza space this year, but ahead of the game when it comes to serving customers what they’ll want in 2020? For that, we turned again to Culinary Tides President Suzy Badaracco, for insights on what both the overall population and industry the data shows. 
First, we wanted to know whether pizza restaurateurs should perhaps focus their attentions in the coming year on any specific part of the pie between the crust/dough, sauce, cheese or even other toppings. In fact, when we published the first part of this series, we also polled readers to see where they’d most like to see changes in the pizza in the coming year. The result? At last check, crust and “don’t touch the pie at all” were tied for first place — an interesting, but of course, completely unscientific view of how our readers are looking at the new year.
But it gives us a “jumping-off” point because Badaracco said her data show that those who want to stay with the pie as it is with no real changes in any part are probably going to be the most successful with diners. Seems Americans are just too skittish at the moment to have their pizza making any sudden or substantial moves.
“It is best to treat it as a whole that creates a picture,” she said. “For example, a Detroit pizza with artisan sausage and Greek olives paints one story, while a traditional Nepalese pizza with imported olive oil and garlic paints a different story.
“What they have in common is what consumers are seeking — they are grounded in history and location. This has a calming effect on consumers which is needed right now with all the country’s unrest.
“Pizza is a marriage, it works best if the parts don’t quarrel or sacrifice part of itself so one thing can stand in the spotlight while the others act as wallflowers. If one item is going to play the part of the Leading Lady, the other elements must still be supporting best friends.”
“Pizza brands should focus on building a sense of community with their customers, offering more personalized experiences, and ensuring that elements — including innovative tech — are applied to offer a greater sense of convenience and engagement.”
-Jaime Bettencourt, Mood Media
We pressed a little further around areas for innovation, asking, for instance, whether even one of the pie’s ingredients that seems to offer limitless variations — the cheese — might be an area where brands could swerve from the straight and narrow. Here again, Badarracco remained firm in advising pizza brands to stay with the comforting traditional pizza cheeses that help customers feel that even when the whole world is turning topsy-turvy, they can still trust their pizza to be good ol’ reliable comfort food.
“Mozzarella is a base, recognizable, expected ingredient in America for pizza. Sure, some chains mix in a bit of other cheeses, but don’t mess with the mozzarella,” she warned. “Change the cheese entirely to a different cheese and you are not serving a pizza anymore – it is a cheesy flatbread or other.
“Change out mozzarella entirely and you have compromised approachability. Also, mozzarella is one of the few cheeses that will not compete with the other elements of the pizza, most other cheeses will have too loud a voice and compromise the balance.”
But all that said, tried-and-true was not invariably the recipe for success in the view of this trend predictor, who had the audacity to predict something completely at odds with what delivery superpower, GrubHub, said it expects to be continued growth in cauliflower crust pizzas in 2020, based on such pizzas’ popularity this year, which as you might recall from the first part of this report soared 650% in order frequency.
But, ever the rebel, Badaracco advised pizza brands to decapitate all those cauliflower-headed pies.
“Let cauliflower be cauliflower… just sayin’,” she said. “It’s missing the B vitamins of wheat flour. Okay, now I am done, promise.”
Plant-based concoctions, as you might have gathered from Badarracco’s tone, are a bit of sore subject for the trend predictor, who is among a growing field of critics of foods made of plants designed to taste like meat, which is also noteworthy for pizza brands planning a plant-based topping or two.
But also of note is that Badaracco’s research indicates actual plant use on pizzas (plants as plants that is, not meaty-tasting substitutes) shows promise for the year to come. In fact, she urged pizza brand culinary leaders to use the plants just as their well-rooted selves, rather than forcing them to be and taste like something else. She said this holds particularly true for pizza restaurateurs seeking to add side items, LTOs or party food offerings.
“Wings will always be here — don’t hate on wings,” she advised of the side item that sustains so many pizza brands when asked about their continued presence on pizza menus. “But with all the focus on plant protein, why not let plants be plants? Step up your game on vegetable sides.
“Not veggies trying to be meat — just vegetables trying to stand up for themselves. Let the Brussel sprout shine by sautéing it with garlic, white wine, a little Parm. Let salads go small and regional to shout (their) brilliance. Add a shaved, broiled squash in the winter. Let them celebrate who they were grown to be. Match them to a regional recipe to ground them.”
So there you have it — some of the top predictions of top experts in the culinary field for pizza restaurateurs as we rip into the Roaring Twenties 2.0, when it seems we’re now not quite as ready to party this time around as we were 100 years ago. Of course back then, the decade ended in the stock market crash, so maybe we’ve learned a thing or two about ourselves and pizza over the last century. Or maybe not.
Photos: iStock
