ROME — After all, Italians don’t always like pineapple on their pizza.
Last month, the Italian branch of the American pizza conglomerate turned off its pizza oven after failing to win over the picky palates where pizza was invented.
The company’s Italian website remained open, but stores such as Turin, Parma and Rome displayed similarly discouraging messages. On saturday. Closed. ” Domino international map was more up to date. 90 international markets are listed, but Italy was not among them.
bloomberg report on tuesday And court documents show that Domino’s Italian franchise “seeked protection from its creditors” earlier this year “after running out of cash and being late in paying its debts.”
Bloomberg said the company had €10.6 million ($10.8 million) in debt at the end of 2020.
The closure put an end to an ambitious business venture meant to lure Italians wanting to try something new, such as cheeseburger pizza or barbecued chicken pizza.
Domino’s Pizza Italia opened its first store in Milan in 2015 through a franchise agreement with local company ePizza.
In legal documents filed in Milan in April, ePizza’s lawyers said the company was optimistic about entering the Italian market in 2015. There has never been a structured, large-scale home delivery model like the model.
just two years ago, media coverage informed the Italian company’s plans to open 850 stores over the next 10 years with the aim of acquiring a 2% stake in the country’s pizza market.
By 2021, 34 restaurants will bear the Domino brand. A representative for Domino’s Pizza Italia also welcomed the opening of his fifth restaurant in Rome, suggesting Italians were open to American-style pizza. . There were Italians who were “not afraid to put pineapple on their pizza,” the representative said.
But the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything.
With restaurants and bars closed for extended periods during various lockdowns, many began adopting the take-out and delivery model that Domino’s Pizza was trying to dominate in Italy.According to April legal documents in Milan He said the proliferation of food delivery platforms such as Deliveroo, Glovo and Just Eat has “increased the competition significantly” for ePizza.
Representatives for ePizza and Domino’s Pizza in the US and Italy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Other culinary ventures that naysayers said were doomed to failure in Italy are doing very well. Many said one would ignore the company’s maxi size and its price. However, the American company’s Italian licensee, Percassi, has opened 18 stores across northern and central Italy, including drive-thru.
After five years as CEO of Domino’s Pizza Italia, Alessandro Lazzaroni left the company in December 2020 to replace the luxury company started by Italian businessman Flavio Briatore, now a former director of Benetton and Renault. CEO of Crazy Pizza, a pizzeria. Formula One racing team.crazy pizza made a headline in Italy this summer after a Neapolitan pizza maker complained that the pizza was too expensive.
And after all, Italians are picky about pizza.
Executive Director Stefano Auricchio association tHat protects ‘authentic Neapolitan pizza’ He said he was sorry to hear that Domino’s Pizza had closed.
That said, he thought Italians have evolved their pizza palate in recent years and are looking more for “artisan products” than chain brands. There is a tendency,” he said.
According to a study recently commissioned by the association, Neapolitan pizza evokes concepts of “quality, happiness and family” that large pizza chains with “standardized offerings” struggled to match.
“Neapolitan pizza is the mother of all pizzas, and so is Italian pizza,” he said. “It all started here”
But the food continues. The former Domino’s Pizza site on a busy Roman street closed Tuesday. It was Gino Piada”
