For pizza’s sake

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For pizza’s sake

Currently operating about 18,000 locations and offering its renowned products in 110 countries, the Pizza Hut staff knows how important it is to pay attention to details, whether it’s meeting standards or exceeding customer expectations. To learn more about the pizza that the Carney brothers originally invented, Bethan Grylls speaks with two executives from YUM! (the company that runs the Pizza Hut restaurants, KFC, and Taco Bell): Ana Maria Rodriguez, Chief Food Innovation and Quality Officer at Pizza Hut International, and Keith Griffiths, Head of Food, Innovation & Technology UK & Europe.

Dough it correctly.

Recognized for offering a wide range of bases, including as the well-known deep pan, Pizza Hut places a high value on its dough-making process.

“Quality flour is essential,” said Griffiths. Like everything else, you receive what you put in.

Every base has a unique quality that is altered during formulation. However, everything begins with that foundation; if the flour isn’t correct, nothing will be.

Each recipe and process varies significantly to achieve the unique flavor and satisfying texture of the brand’s assortment. “A careful balance of only natural ingredients prepared in a totally unique way to achieve the artisan look and taste experience” is how the San Francisco pizza is described. The method used in the restaurant for proofing, stretching, and baking the dough completes the picture.

While the thinner doughs are stretched by hand, the pan pizza is formed in a pan that has been particularly created—thus the name—and is then allowed to rise and proof inside of it.

Rodriguez clarified, “We created the deep dish pan to manage the dough weight and the number of toppings that were created when we first launched pan pizza.” “Over two years of R&D work were required.”

Accurate instruction, the Pizza Hut method

Training is given a lot of attention, especially when it comes to the general manager’s development, who is in charge of instructing the staff on how to serve Pizza Hut pizza.

“Part of what Keith, I, and our incredible global culinary experts do on a daily basis is make sure the teams have the right tools and ingredients, and that all requirements are fulfilled, so that workers can more easily and passionately make the ideal pizza, no matter what kind of crust they choose.”

In addition to teaching staff members how to cook delicious pizza, we also show them what might go wrong when instructions aren’t followed. According to Griffiths, this implies that the general manager of the restaurant can troubleshoot if they have a new team member and pinpoint the process where they might have erred, showing how to improve it. “We try to put love and passion into the entire process because we believe that passion is key.”

Many people are unaware that Pizza Hut makes their dough in two different ways: either fresh in-store or given frozen as a raw dough piece. “They both labor and produce pizza of the same excellent quality, but they have completely different tools and training.”

Before a pizza is served to a customer, it usually takes more than twenty hours of labor with frozen dough and about four hours with fresh dough. Rodriguez stated that creating recipes that could all be baked in the same oven, stay consistent, and taste “great out of the oven and during delivery” was the biggest problem given the variety of bases available on the Pizza Hut menu. Every oven has pre-set timers and temperatures that are unchangeable to prevent errors.

“The magic is in the dough and design of the pizza; our ovens are actually pretty standard,” the speaker stated. Therefore, the task of culinary innovation for us is to ensure that all of our pizzas, whether they are thick, thin, stuffed, or not stuffed, bake to perfection.

According to Rodriguez, the requirements also assist team members in “worrying less.” “Everything we use, including the toppings, dough, flour, water, yeast, and oil, needs to be of the highest caliber and meet all specifications.”

Additionally, the doughs have a long shelf life, which makes it more likely that every restaurant will have enough to serve its patrons.

“The general managers of the restaurants look at sales from the previous week and year and assess what is truly going on in the surrounding environment, such as a football game or a special season or day.

Additionally, our recipe implies that the dough gets better the more it ferments and proofs. Therefore, you may simply carry over extra dough and keep its excellent quality even if you forecast more than you need.

Gluten-free pastry

One in every 100 persons worldwide has celiac disease1, and 18 million people in the US alone are gluten sensitive.2. Businesses cannot afford to neglect the PWAG (those without coeliac disease avoiding gluten) population in addition to providing a safe option for those who suffer from this autoimmune illness or a gluten sensitivity. Driven by (perhaps speculative) health reasons, 72% of the 3.1 million Americans who adopt a gluten-free diet are PWAGs.3.

As a result, most businesses now have to cater to the gluten-free market. But does this impact how things work or taste?

According to Griffiths, “the procedure is almost exactly the same as the traditional dough.” “To guarantee consistency, we go through the same processes to define that quality standard, and we review them every two months.

Naturally, we also implemented the necessary safety measures and guidelines to ensure that there is no cross-contamination. We use different processes for applying the toppings, all of which are gluten-free in the UK.

Ingredient lists and rules

Despite having originated in the US, Pizza Hut is now a global favorite. The team had to come up with a creative solution to provide the same delicious pizza anywhere, taking into account different importing and regulatory requirements, in order to enable worldwide expansion.

Pizza Hut recognized what it ought to look and taste like overall when we first considered growing. As a US-based company, we began by importing goods from the US. However, we soon realized that there were financial constraints and that the imported ingredients frequently lacked the necessary shelf life, according to Rodriguez.

The brand adopted a global, regional, and local supplier approach in order to get around this.

We visit suppliers, identify them, have them sign confidentiality agreements, and share proprietary formulae with them as part of our stringent supplier approval procedure. Next, we transmit the benchmark samples that represent our desired outcomes. After then, a drawn-out procedure of submitting samples, conducting consumer testing and validation, and taking into account numerous business-related factors including price negotiations begin.

“All the laws that apply in a specific location, including religious, governmental, and labeling rules, must be taken into account. After that is finished, we approve the product and send it through testing. If all goes according to plan, it spreads to that specific nation or area.

Naturally, the goal is for the pizza to taste equally good no matter where you are in the world, but occasionally the company lets other ingredients be used. “However, we never sacrifice flavor,” Rodriguez continued.

We have permitted some minor modifications and adjustments over the years due to regulatory requirements. The UK, for instance, has far tougher salt standards and GMO prohibitions than the US, which may slightly alter the flavor profile.

“An additional instance is India, where the vast majority of people abstain from eating beef. How can a “Meat Lovers” pizza be made without using beef? It’s easy to create; you just use chicken and pork toppings, pig pepperoni, and an equal amount of meat.

upcoming schedules

Over the course of two years, the pizza company has been gradually introducing its new San Francisco-style pies. It’s a homemade, classic crust made by us. It’s not your typical pizza, Rodriquez remarked.

Unlike its other crusts, this one is baked using sourdough, which gives a flavor that is mild but you “can’t help but notice,” according to Griffiths.

“The secret is that it’s still made in our regular ovens and goes through the same process, so the team members can actually execute it,” Rodriquez continued. “It looks like a wood oven pizza.” “We intend to grow to many more nations after it has been implemented in 21 currently. Although Covid has slowed us down a little, we intend to pick up steam quickly so that all of our customers can access it by 2022.

Rodriquez added, “Pizza is a blessing because it glues people together and brings us together,” as he concluded our talk. It’s mystical. For the love of pizza, we are.

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