Word: hut
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Schnatter, 36, who gets visibly excited when talking about the sugar-acid ratio in his pizza, which gives Papa John's pies a distinctively sweet flavor, puts simplicity above all else. Pizza Hut offers more variety; Domino's stresses fast delivery; and Little Caesars sells the least expensive pies. Papa John's has no seating, offers just two types of pizza--no salads, sandwiches or buffalo wings--and remakes any pies that rate less than an 8 on the company's 10-point scale. If the cheese shows a single air bubble or the crust is not golden brown...
...recently been down some 20% from its 52-week high.) Schnatter and his wife and three children live in a brick-and-stone mansion set on nearly 16 landscaped acres in suburban Louisville, Ky. One neighbor Schnatter probably doesn't call on: David Novak, the former boss of Pizza Hut and current president and vice chairman of Pizza Hut parent Tricon Global Restaurants, who lives not far away...
...Pizza Hut (1997 sales: $4.7 billion), which has a 22% share of the pizza market and four times as many stores as Papa John's, has been busily boosting quality and shutting down poorly performing stores. Under pressure from Papa John's, Pizza Hut spent $50 million last year to roll out what it called Totally New Pizzas, featuring thicker tomato sauce, fresh sliced vegetables and meatier toppings. Meanwhile, Pizza Hut has closed 250 stores since PepsiCo spun it and siblings Taco Bell and KFC into Tricon last year. The new strategy pushed Pizza Hut's same-store sales...
That prospect has made Papa John's cheeky "better ingredients" claims particularly galling to the Pizza Hut high command. Taking its cue from Pizza Hut's own challenge to customers to find a better pizza, Papa John's twitted its rival for using tomato sauce made from yucky-sounding "remanufactured paste." To rub in more salt, Papa John's called on Pizza Hut co-founder Frank Carney, who sold the chain to PepsiCo in 1977 and now owns more than 70 Papa John's franchises, to declare in television spots, "Sorry, guys, I found a better pizza." Schnatter professes...
...fact, Pizza Hut has scored some points of its own. Schnatter concedes that Papa John's sauce comes from canned rather than fresh tomatoes--Pizza Hut's sauce is packed in sealed plastic bags--and that Papa John's mushrooms are canned. (Pizza Hut's are fresh.) An unembarrassed Schnatter is switching to fresh mushrooms throughout the Papa John's chain. "I prefer canned mushrooms," he says with a straight face. "But the consumer prefers fresh...