Papa John’s, whose motto of “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza” you likely know even if you’ve never touched a slice, is making moves to uphold that promise by removing a host of artificial ingredients from its pizzas. “We closed out 2015 announcing our commitment to serve chicken raised without antibiotics and are ringing in the New Year artificial-flavor and synthetic-color free,” said Sean Muldoon, Papa John’s Senior Vice President of Research and Development. This might lead one to wonder what made the ingredients “better” before the change, but to its credit Papa John’s is the first national pizza chain to make a move like this.
It’s unclear whether going all-natural will help Papa John’s recover from a season of poor sales and falling stocks, but it seems like management is banking on the consumer demand for transparency (or at least the appearance of transparency) in ingredients that once helped Chipotle rocket to the top. Hopefully they can do so on a national scale without the same food safety issues that plagued the Mexican chain.
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pressure to go all-natural in their ingredients after numerous changes in menu from high profile chains like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Panera Bread Co. And now Papa John’s International inc. is eliminating ingredients used in their pizza and dips. Ten of the fourteen are being eliminated by the end of this year and the remaining four by the end of 2016. But these costs are estimated at and added expense of $100 million each year. John Schnatter, founder and chief executive officer, has been making changes with their menu since 1996 with changes like removing fillers from the meat used for toppings and improving the pizza dough. They have removed mono-sodium glutamate from its ranch dressing and pulled trans fats form its garlic sauce. The company has also pulled cellulose, an anti-caking agent, from its mozzarella cheese. Papa John’s pizza is generally more expensive than its competitors like Pizza Hut and Domino’s but boasts their “quality ingredients for a better pizza.” While prices in pizza will increase in price corresponding with the expenses in producing pizzas with higher-priced natural ingredients, Schnatter believes that their customers have shown willingness to pay a dollar or two more for their pizzas. Papa John’s has recently started posting their ingredients online and pushing on menu transparency. With the shift in ingredients, Schnatter hopes it will put the chain in a position that’s hard for competitors to match.
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