Pizza Hut

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Pizza Hut
Type	Subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc.
Founded	Wichita, Kansas, USA (1958)
Headquarters	Addison, Texas, USA
Key people	Dan and Frank Carney (founders) David C. Novak (CEO)
Industry	Food Wholesale
Products	Pizza, Pasta
Employees	300,000+
Website	pizzahut.com

Pizza Hut is a restaurant chain and international franchise based in Addison, Texas USA (a northern suburb of Dallas) specializing in American-style pizza along with side dishes including (depending on location) buffalo wings, breadsticks, and garlic bread. Pizza Hut is the world's largest pizza restaurant chain and is part of the YUM! family of restaurants. YUM! brand restaurants total approximately 34,000 restaurants, delivery-carry out units, and kiosks in 100 countries.^[1].

Contents 1 Products 2 International operation 2.1 UK & Ireland 2.2 Australia & New Zealand 2.3 Bangladesh 2.4 Sri Lanka 2.5 Pakistan 2.6 Malaysia 2.7 India 2.8 Israel 2.9 Hong Kong 2.10 Austria 2.11 Mainland China 2.12 Serbia 2.13 Egypt 3 Advertising 3.1 Sponsorship 4 Unions 5 Cultural references 6 Trivia 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Products

The most commonly sold food at the restaurants is the "Pan Pizza", which usually comes in four different sizes including Personal Pan (which is an individual serving), Small, Medium, and Large, although some stores have done away with the small size. They come in a variety of toppings, including "specialty" styles. Pan Pizza has a thicker crust than most other commercially available pizzas. Unlike most of Pizza Hut's competitors (such as Domino's deep dish or Papa John's Perfect Pan), Pizza Hut does not charge extra for its pan pizza.

In addition to the Pan Pizza, Pizza Hut also sells "Stuffed Crust" (with the outermost edge wrapped around a coil of mozzarella cheese); "Hand-Tossed" (which is more like traditional pizzeria crusts); "Thin 'N Crispy" (a thin and crispy dough which was the original crust); "Bigfoot", which is a two-foot by one-foot square cut pizza; and the Dippin' Strips pizza, which is similar to a Sicilian pizza but is cut into small strips that can be dipped into a number of sauces.

Pizza Hut has experimented with new products frequently. Less successful ones have been discontinued. These include Chicago Dish Pizza and Sicilian; the Sicilian Pizza made a 2006 comeback. Other products Pizza Hut have offered are the "P'zone", Pizza Hut's version of the calzone; the "Cheesy Bites", similar to the "Stuffed Crust" except the crust has been divided into bite-sized pieces that can be pulled apart; and the "Insider", where a layer of cheese is in between two layers of dough.

Pizza Hut also has a number of side dishes including bread sticks, cheese sticks, cinnamon sticks, mozzarella sticks, onion rings, hot and mild chicken wings, boneless wings, chicken munchers, jalapeño poppers, and garlic bread.

Depending on the size, Pizza Huts also may offer pasta dinners such as Spaghetti or Cavatini. They often come with a side of garlic bread. Some Pizza Huts also serve lunch and dinner buffets with numerous types of pizza, breadsticks and pastas, as well as a salad bar.

A new, upscale concept was unveiled in 2005, called "Pizza Hut Italian Bistro". The concept, unveiled at fifty locations nationwide, is similar to a traditional Pizza Hut, except that new pasta dishes are offered, such as penne pasta, chicken pomodoro; toasted sandwiches and other foods are also offered.^[2] Instead of black, white, and red, Bistro locations feature a burgundy and tan motif.^[3] Pizza Hut Bistros still serve the chain's traditional pizzas and sides, as well.

[edit] International operation

Pizza Hut restaurants are located throughout the world. Based on their location and the culture of the people, Pizza Hut often offers different menu choices in these countries than in the United States and Canada.

[edit] UK & Ireland

The menu has recently been simplified, there are now only five types of bases available, Pan Pizza, "The Italian" (A more traditional style pizza), "The Edge" (A really thin base with no crusts, cut into 16 squares, rather than traditional slices), stuffed crust, and cheesy bites (small, cheese-filled garlic bread bites).

In addition the menu offers a buffet; all you can eat "under terms and conditions", for pizza only or for a combination of pizza, pasta, and salad. Recently Pizza Hut has extended its buffet to cover all 7 days, except for selected stores.

[edit] Australia & New Zealand

In Australia, Pizza Hut has followed a different model—after an initial attempt to introduce Pizza Hut restaurants as in the United States and the United Kingdom, Australian Pizza Huts now generally operate as take away and delivery operations with all orders processed by two major call centers located in Brisbane and Sydney. Originally, Australian Pizza Huts were full service sit-down restaurants, but were scaled back due to increased competition from other fast food chains. Australian Pizza Hut restaurants currently compete with Domino's, Pizza Haven, Eagle Boys and various other pizza stores. The situation has been similar for the brand in neighboring country New Zealand where all orders (except ones made instore) are processed by a call centre in Auckland. In Australia, soya oil is used instead of vegetable oil for all pizzas, and barbecue sauce is available as an alternative to tomato sauce as a topping base.

[edit] Bangladesh

Pizza Hut is one of the most popular fast food outlets in Bangladesh. Currently there are two outlets, one in Dhaka which is situated at Gulshan-1 and the other at Chittagong. Another 2/3 outlets are set to start operations soon. All food served in the outlets in Bangladesh are halal.

[edit] Sri Lanka

Pizza Hut in Sri Lanka is one of the first variety chain stores in the country. Currently Pizza hut offers an online ordering system which delivers to the following outlets: Colombo, Negombo, Kandy, Kiribathgoda, Kotahena, Colpetty, Union Place, Rajagiriya, Havelock Rd., Malabe, Dehiwala, Nugegoda, Thalawathugoda, Moratuwa, Maharagama and Wattala.

[edit] Pakistan

In Pakistan, Pizza Hut introduced itself in 1994, fully two years before starting operations in India. Due to increasing demands, Pizza Hut has multiple outlets in many of the country's major cities including Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi and Islamabad. These outlets offer a wide variety of pizza, combining western and eastern recipes. Pizza Hut Pakistan also offers an "All you can eat and drink" deal in the holy Islamic month of Ramadan.

[edit] Malaysia

In Malaysia, Pizza Hut offers toppings that do not contain pork to comply with the Muslim faith; instead, substitutions made with chicken or turkey are used.

[edit] India

Pizza Hut came to India in 1996 with a dine-in restaurant in Bangalore, that had special vegetarian pizzas. In addition to traditional toppings, it incorporates Indian favorite foods such as Chicken tikkas, Lamb korma and other dishes, in its list of innovative toppings. Along with pizzas, the menu features appetizers such as garlic bread and soups, fresh salads, oven-baked pastas and choice of ice-cream sundaes.

Pizza Hut now has a presence in many major Indian cities such as Bangalore, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Udaipur, Lucknow, New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Kanpur,Chennai, Pune, Surat, Puducherry, Coimbatore, Amritsar, Cochin, Hyderabad (with multiple branches in many of those cities), Ahmedabad,Indore,Visakhapatnam and Bhubaneswar.

[edit] Israel

In Israel, Pizza Hut is kosher in order to accommodate Jewish law. Everywhere else in the world, Pizza Hut pizza is not certified as Kosher.

The popular slogan there is:

• Great pizza under one roof

[edit] Hong Kong

The first Pizza Hut in Hong Kong was opened in 1981, in the basement of The Landmark (demolished in 2000 with the Landmark East portion of the complex). It currently has 54 restaurants over Hong Kong, 34 being "express" restaurants and 20 being full service restaurants^[4]

"Pizza Hut Hong Kong" is notable for its menu with half of the pizza selections that are thousand island sauce based. Also, along with pizza, pasta, lasagne and baked rice are equally emphasised in Hong Kong's Pizza Hut outlets.

[edit] Austria

Recently, many Pizza Hut restaurants have opened throughout Austria, most notably in Teesdorf.

[edit] Mainland China

The first Pizza Hut in Mainland China was the restaurant at Dongzhimen in Beijing, opened on December 1, 1990. As of 2005 there are nearly 200 restaurants in more than 50 cities, such as almost all the provincial capitals and large cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Changsha. In China, Pizza Hut is marketed as a dine-in restaurant, serving sangria and escargot as well as the traditional pizza (including traditional toppings and others like tuna).

[edit] Serbia

In October 2003, Belgrade got its first Pizza Hut restaurant. The restaurant is situated in Makedonska Street 44 in the heart of Belgrade. This Pizza Hut offers pizzas, pastas, salads and starters, as well as coffee, cakes, and ice cream. Since the beginning of 2004, Pizza Hut has offered Take–Away as a new service.

[edit] Egypt

Pizza Hut was and is a big hit in Egypt. It was one of the first fast food chains that opened in Egypt, after McDonald's. It now has many outlets all over the country, employing a lot of youth^{[citation needed]}. At the same time, it is still keeping it's high standards.
Pizza Hut serves Pan Pizza, Thin n' Crispy and Stuffed Crust, with all the basic toppings, however no pork, ham nor bacon are available to please the Muslim majority. Pasta, salads and deserts were introduced in 2005. Before that Pizza Hut was only known for its pizzas, with few other choices. That was changed as a result of heavy competition with other pizza chains, local and international ones.

[edit] Advertising

Pizza Hut's main advertising slogan is "Gather 'round the good stuff".Pizza Hut does not have an official international mascot, but at one time, there were commercials in the United States called 'The Pizza Head Show.' These commercials ran from 1993-1997 and were based loosely on the Mr. Bill shorts from Saturday Night Live in the 1970s. The ads featured a slice of pizza with a face made out of toppings called 'Pizza Head'. In Australia during the Mid to late 1990s, the advertising mascot was a delivery boy named Dougie, with boyish good looks who, upon delivering pizza to his father, would hear the catchphrase "Here's a tip, be good to your mother".

In 1994, Donald Trump and ex-wife Marla Maples-Trump starred in a commercial. The ending of the commercial showed Maples-Trump asking for the last slice, to which Donald replied, "Actually dear, you're only entitled to half", a play on the couple's recent divorce.

In 1995, Ringo Starr starred in a Pizza Hut commercial which also featured The Monkees. Rush Limbaugh also starred in a Pizza Hut commercial the same year.

In 1997, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev starred in a Pizza Hut commercial to raise money for the Perestroyka Archives. In recent years, Pizza Hut has had various celebrity spokespeople, including Jessica Simpson, the Muppets and Damon Hill. Recent commercials have Queen Latifah providing the voiceover.

The 1990 NES game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, came with a coupon for a free pizza. The game was filled with Pizza Hut advertising and pizza that would refill the character's life.

Pizza Hut sponsored the first space pizza delivery in 2001, and paid for their logo to appear on a Russian Proton rocket in 2000.^[5]

In Australia and New Zealand, 2006 saw the introduction of a mascot in Pizza Hut's advertising - "Pizza Mutt", a small dog who delivers pizzas.

[edit] Sponsorship

In 2005 Pizza Hut sponsored The Simpsons on Channel 4. The adverts often contained the catchphrase "Who's called the Hut?" At the same time, but with a deal that started years earlier, Domino's Pizza sponsored The Simpsons on British TV station Sky One.

Pizza Hut has also been a longtime sponsor of the "Book It!" program, which encourages reading in American schools. Those who read books according to the goal set by the classroom teacher are rewarded with Pizza Hut coupons offering free or discounted menu items. In the late 1980s, Pizza Hut would throw a free pizza party for a class if all its students meet their reading goals.

In the early 1990s, as part of PepsiCo's sponsorship of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Pizza Hut was included in the acknowledgement, along with Taco Bell and KFC, which PepsiCo owned at the time.

Pizza Hut was the shirt sponsor of English football team Fulham F.C..

In 2000, Pizza Hut was a part-time sponsor of Galaxy Motorsports' #75 Ford in the then NASCAR Winston Cup Series, driven by Wally Dallenbach Jr.

Terry Labonte drove selected events with Pizza Hut as the primary sponsor of his #44 car in 2005.

In March 2007, Pizza Hut partnered with Verizon Wireless. If a Cheesy Bites Pizza was purchased, one would receive a free Chocolate phone by LG.

[edit] Unions

In more recent history, Pizza Hut's delivery drivers have been organizing into unions [1]. These drivers cite conditions as 'deplorable' with the average US driver getting paid $0.50(USD) per delivery (while Pizza Hut, on average, charges the customer $1.50(USD) per delivery), compared to a national average elsewhere of $1.25 per delivery [2]. Such unions include SEIU and APDD. In addition to wages, many Pizza Hut drivers have safety and job security concerns. As of October 2006 no union has successfully recruited in any company-owned Pizza Hut restaurants.

In New Zealand, Pizza Hut (managed by Restaurant Brands) along with other fast food companies is facing union pressure from Supersizemypay.com and the Unite Union to improve wage conditions and give workers secure hours.

[edit] Cultural references

• The 1976 film The Bad News Bears has a sequence early in the film where all the coaches of the Little League teams for the upcoming season congregate at a Pizza Hut.
• In the film Spaceballs, one of the villains is named Pizza the Hutt.
• In the 1989 film Back to the Future Part II, the McFly family is having a Pizza Hut dehydrated pizza for dinner after being fully hydrated by a Black & Decker Hydrator. One side of the pizza has pepperoni, the other side has green peppers.
• A Pizza Hut pizza can be seen in the 1991 movie, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.
• When Universal's The Land Before Time (1988) and New Line's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) were first released on VHS and laserdisc, they started with Pizza Hut commercials.
• In the first Wayne's World movie (1992), Wayne talks about how he refuses to sell out to corporate society, then holds up a slice of Pizza Hut pizza.
• In the television sitcom Friends, the character Ross Geller had his first bachelor party in the basement of a Pizza Hut.
• In the film Clerks II, the main characters, en route to work at the fictitious Mooby's fast food restaurant, pass a number of actual fast food franchise restaurants dotting Route 35 in Middletown Township, New Jersey; one happens to be a Pizza Hut.
• The Japanese anime Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion includes several sightings of the Pizza Hut logo. One of the main characters, C.C., orders Pizza Hut pizza frequently. In episode 7, it's revealed that she is saving up points from orders to collect a "Cheese-kun Holding Pillow". The pillow appears in episode 13.^[6]
• Pizza Hut was prominently featured in the 2006 Happy Madison film, The Benchwarmers. Whenever a baseball team wins a game in the film, it goes to celebrate at Pizza Hut. Furthermore, the character played by David Spade tries to win over a girl who fills the salad bar at Pizza Hut with the line "I like salad". The final celebration in the film takes place at the restaurant.
• In mid-2003, MGM Home Entertainment released DVD copies of the films All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Honeymoon in Vegas, and Mr. Mom at the Pizza Hut restaurant.

[edit] Trivia

• During the August coup in Russia which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, then-Russian SFSR president Boris Yeltsin famously ordered Pizza Hut for everyone barricaded in the Russian White House during the coup.
• The longest continuously-operating Pizza Hut in the world is in Manhattan, Kansas, in a shopping and tavern district known as Aggieville, next to the Kansas State University campus.
• The oldest running Pizza Hut is in Wichita, Kansas, on the Wichita State Campus.
• Pizza Hut delivered the first pizzas to the International Space Station in 2001.
• The company uses more than 700 million pounds of pepperoni and more than 525 million pounds of tomatoes each year. If the pepperoni slices were laid side by side, they would stretch twice around the Earth and all the way to the moon.
• More than 300 million pounds of cheese are used by the company each year, making it the world's largest user.
• In Germany, Pizza Hut is sometimes mistakenly referred to as "Pizza Hat" by many (German pronunciation "Pizza Hoot"). This is because Germans mistake the English word hut for the German word Hut(hat), and because the red roof in the logo looks like a hat.^{[citation needed]}
• The highest-grossing Pizza Hut is located in Moscow; it grosses an average $6500 a day.
• The only Pizza Hut to offer Coca-Cola is located in the Student Center on the Georgia Institute of Technology campus. Georgia Tech is located in Atlanta, Georgia, the world headquarters of Coke, and has numerous financial ties to the Coca-Cola Company.
• The band Ween was once commissioned to create a jingle for the "Insider" pizza, but instead they created a purposefully bad song because they dislike Pizza Hut. When that jingle was rejected, they created another, nearly identical jingle with extra cursing being the only difference. The song is titled, "Where'd the Cheese Go?". A live version of this jingle can be found on the album "All Request Live".

[edit] References

1. ^ Our Story, PizzaHut.com
2. ^ http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_14_39/ai_n13593323
3. ^ http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/COLUMNISTS37/703090323/1061/ENT07
4. ^ Pizza Hut (Hong Kong) History, Pizza Hut Hong Kong, accessed on November 27, 2006.
5. ^ Pitching products in the final frontier
6. ^ Code Geass & Pizza Hut

[edit] External links

• Official site.
• Directory of international websites
• Pizza Hut Bangladesh site.
• Pizza Hut Ireland site.
• Nutrition facts