Posted on 11/04/2025 6:56:07 AM PST by Red Badger
Key Points
Yum Brands will explore strategic options for Pizza Hut, which has struggled in recent years.
Potential outcomes could include an outright divestiture, selling a stake in the chain or a joint venture.
The chain’s share of the U.S. pizza market has shrunk from 22.6% in 2019 to 18.7% in 2024, according to Barclays.
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Yum Brands on Tuesday announced it will explore strategic options for Pizza Hut.
“The Pizza Hut team has been working hard to address business and category challenges; however, Pizza Hut’s performance indicates the need to take additional action to help the brand realize its full value, which may be better executed outside of Yum! Brands,” Yum CEO Chris Turner said in a statement.
The company has not set a deadline or definitive timetable for the review process. While Yum did not specify what the review’s “range of strategic options” include, potential outcomes could be an outright divestiture, a joint venture or the sale of a stake in the chain.
“We do think the business can be positioned for even greater success in the future,” Turner said on the company’s earnings conference call. “In some markets, there may be a multi-year effort that is required to reposition it as the leading pizza brand in those markets, and it’s possible that those efforts may best be done under a different structure, potentially under outside ownership.”
Pizza Hut has been a part of a triumvirate with KFC and Taco Bell for decades, dating back to when PepsiCo still owned the fast-food chains. The beverage giant spun off the restaurants in 1997, christening the new company Tricon Global, later renamed to Yum.
Tuesday’s announcement caps years of struggle for Pizza Hut.
On Tuesday, Yum reported that the chain’s same-store sales fell 1% during the third quarter, fueled by a 6% drop in its home market. During the same quarter, Taco Bell and KFC reported same-store sales growth of 7% and 3%, respectively.
Before the pandemic, Pizza Hut tried to shrug off its reputation as a dine-in venue and reposition itself as an option for pizza delivery and carryout in the U.S. When Covid-19 lockdowns shuttered restaurants, the chain saw its sales skyrocket, like the rest of its pizza industry. But once restrictions loosened, so-called pizza fatigue settled in, leading to another sales slump.
And now, with consumers dining out less often, Pizza Hut is facing increased competition for a smaller set of diners. The chain’s share of the U.S. pizza market has shrunk from 22.6% in 2019 to 18.7% in 2024, ceding customers to rival Domino’s Pizza , according to Barclays.
In the wake of the pullback in consumer spending, other restaurant companies have recently shed challenged parts of their businesses in an effort to improve their balance sheets.
Starbucks on Monday announced it is selling a majority stake in its embattled China business and will form a joint venture with Boyu Capital. Last month, Jack in the Box divested Del Taco for $115 million, well short of the $575 million it paid for the chain less than four years ago. And Krispy Kreme sold its remaining stake in Insomnia Cookies this summer to focus on growing its U.S. business profitably.
They hired less qualified people.....................
Only place I ever got food poisoning. Turned into Pizza Butt.
No loss. The brand has priced itself out of business.
IF we buy to-go pizza, we buy from the Pizza-Pizza folks.
Decent for the $$, comes out of the store hot!
I had a Double Dave's near me that did a full pizza and salad bar buffet every day for lunch, but that place closed after it was flooded twice by a nearby creek that overflowed in heavy rains.
Mountain Mike's in California was a go-to place for pizza buffet lunch for me when I worked there, but I started going to a closer Round Table that had a better salad bar.
When I was fresh out of college, Pizza Inn was all over the Houston area and had a pretty good pizza buffet lunch, but they shrunk their Houston presence a long time ago, and now I won't go to the areas where the remaining Pizza Inns are, as they are just too far away to go for a casual lunch.
Sadly, there are no decent pizza buffet lunch places near me nowadays.
-PJ
I stopped eating at Pizza Hut when I read in fine print that their pizzas were made with “textured vegetable protein,” whatever that is.
SOY...................
When my daughter was a teenager she worked at our CiCi’s, which is now gone.
She said, “You don’t want to eat there.”.....................
Ever out west, try Pizza Ranch. Excellent buffet. Pizza average. Fried chicken is great. Dressing. Taters. Vegies. Salad,etc.
They could start by using real cheese, properly aged.
-PJ
Bring the chain back to the 80s. Decor, food and ingredients, especially. Focus on FAMILIES. Not apartment dwelling amerifatf-ck mongrels who shop at Walmart leaned over on the cart dressed in slippers and fuzzy pajama pants. And get the hell out of the strip malls and get your red top buildings back. Red cups and pan pizzas. Scrap the low iq menu you defecate out currently.
There are ‘Mom & Pop’ pizza places that are dine-in and usually their pizzas are excellent!............
The former Pizza Hut in town is now a Mexican restaurant with a green roof.
Godfather’s.... sigh... wish they had some stores in Metro Detroit....
“I find Hershey, Mars and Nestle chocolate completely inedible”
pretty much all of the commercial “chocolate” candy makers have substituted cheap sugars for expensive chocolate ... almost the only thing that’s chocolate about them is the color ... if one were to close their eyes and have someone unwrap a piece and pop it into their mouths, they’d have no idea that what they were eating was chocolate because the sugar content is so overwhelming ...
only the very high end chocolate makers, like Chocolove, make actual chocolate candy ... and these types of chocolate makers list the percentage of chocolate in their candies ...
A big part of the problem has been YUM Brands .Everything thing they buy turns to crap fast. KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell. Though Taco Bell has managed to keep its core demo. It all has to do with their management style and their focus on maximum profit. Also, the water in Louisville KY where they are headquartered is full of funk and stuff floating down the Ohio River from Cincinnatti.
Shakey, it turns out, was an irreverent nickname given to the founder of the original restaurant for a severe involuntary tremor he had, perhaps from some channelopathy or some basal ganglion disorder.
Life was mean back in the early 1960s.
And 70s.
They erred in the 80s trying to compete with upstart Dominoes. The 30 minutes or free delivery rattled them. They invested money in new gas jet ovens which ruined their most popular product, thin and crispy. Gas jets can’t achieve the crispness.
Then they cafeteria changed dough recipes, sauces, etc. for ease and labor and cooking process. Made the pizza taste fake.
Then cheaper cheese with more oil added instead of pure mozzarella with a little provolone. Then pre-chopped veggies in bags that got wet and soggy instead of cutting fresh vegetables like they used to.
Add removing sit-down restaurants for mire carry out/delivery.
When I worked at one in college the thin and crispy was excellent. Cooked in real ovens and not gas jet conveyor belts.
Pizza Hut gave up on any sort of quality long long ago.
Spent 3 years in college hand making pan pizzas every morning so they could rise and be ready for lunch.
Now just premade and shipped in.
Pan pizza never delivered well. It needs to be eaten fresh out of the piping hot pan. That’s the entire reason they came out with hand tossed when they started delivery in the 90s
Customers however chose to still order pan anyway.
Abandoning the actual restaurant concept to race to the bottom with delivery.. I don’t know how they stand out in any way at this point
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