If you love pizza but have started off the New Year hoping to be more health conscious, we have some good news for you! While chatting with the Restaurant Brokers Eric and Robin Gagnon on their talk radio show, Peter Romeo, Vice President and Editorial Director of the food service group CSB Business, revealed that “better for you” pizza will be trending in the restaurant industry in 2014.
What is better for you pizza? “In essence it’s the fast casualization of the pizza sector,” Romeo explained “Put another way, who will do it better, with better ingredients, a higher price tag, more customization, all the positives that made Chipotle a success?” Romeo went on to dub the trend, "the Chipotle of the pizza industry."
Romeo does not use the Chipotle analogy without reason. One of the players striving to become the Chipotle of the pizza sector is Chipotle itself! The company has been operating a pizza restaurant in Denver since May of 2013 and is looking to get into the market in a big way. Other well known players in the pizza industry are following suit. Larry Flax and Rick Rosenfeld of California Pizza Kitchen have gone on record saying they also plan to do a better for you pizza. Umami Burger has also acquired the concept with their pizza chain 800 Degrees, which they recently announced will be expanding outside of their current Los Angeles base.
To hear about this and other trends hitting the restaurant industry in 2014, listen to the full show at www.wesellrestaurants.com.
We Sell Restaurants is on the air every Saturday at noon in Atlanta on TALK920 AM. You can hear a rebroadcast of the complete show on Sunday at 1PM on Biz1190. Download the nation's only restaurant radio show as a podcast from iTunes store at the following link.