8 stories

20 November 2018

We are now on the verge of a product manufacturing breakthrough.

For more than a year, the Dodo Pizza R&D team has been working on our own special pizza sauce. Pizza sauce is one of the key ingredients defining pizza flavor. Being a small chain before, we used to resort to a basic sauce that was rather bland, and our pizza flavor was strongly affected by it. Now that we have grown, we are able to create our own sauce.

Nowadays, they produce excellent mozzarella cheese in Russia, but alas, nobody makes pizza sauce here. You need a special kind of tomato for it that is widespread in Italy, Greece, Spain, and Turkey but not in Russia. So we approached Mutti, an Italian family business and one of the leading pizza sauce manufacturers in Europe. The Mutti company was founded in 1899, and it commands vast expertise in the field.

After a lot of experiments, tests, and focus groups, we created a pizza sauce recipe specially designed for our Russian customers. In August, our new sauce beat our main competitor’s sauce in blind taste tests. We are trying it out in 20 of our pizzerias, and again, it turns out that this new sauce is winning against competitors. Soon it will be adopted in all our pizzerias. And the most welcome news for our franchisee partners is that the new sauce is going to be 15% cheaper than the old basic one thanks to the better terms of our contract with the global supplier from Italy.

Perhaps you’re wondering, why cut prices for the franchisee partners when the franchiser could make money out of the price differential? Well, the key value of our company is openness. We are absolutely open with our franchisees. Unlike other international pizza networks in Russia, we don’t profit from the supplies delivery on principle.

For example, Domino’s Pizza makes its franchisees buy all their ingredients from the franchiser on account of standards compliance. As a matter of fact, Domino’s Pizza makes additional profit from the supplies delivery. And it’s not a secret; it is specified in the company public reports. But you can ensure quality control and standard compliance even without “corporate” supply delivery.

Dodo Pizza franchisees buy all their key ingredients from one logistics operator, the East West company. All our official suppliers deliver the ingredients to the East West warehouses, and then East West packs them into handy parcels and delivers them to our pizzerias. East West charges only for logistics and delivery, and Dodo Pizza doesn’t make a single ruble out of the supplies, though we are still responsible for delivery control, quality control, and standard compliance; incidentally, McDonald’s operates the same way. And because of this, our partners get the ingredients at lower prices than the franchisees of international pizza chains.

We profit from the royalties only. Why? First of all, it’s an honest and transparent method because it involves no hidden royalties. Second, profitable pizzerias are the foundation of our business. If our partners make more money, they are able to invest into the team, business development, marketing, and pizzeria upgrades more. In the long run, it makes the whole enterprise healthier and more sustainable. Above all, such openness builds real trust. And trust is a real strength; it creates a real team. And people united will never be defeated.

 

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Dodo Pizza Baltiysk: feeling blessed

06 November 2018

With Eugeny Naidenov, Ultimate Guitar founder, at the westernmost Dodo Pizza in Russia—in Baltiysk, near Kaliningrad.

In a small town, we saw good service, an awesome product, and a super clean and welcoming pizzeria. Feeling really inspired. Everything we’ve been working so hard and relentlessly on at Dodo Pizza is bearing fruit. There are only 33 thousand people living in Baltiysk. Yet, just a few months since its launch, our pizzeria already nets around 1.5 million rubles ($23,000) a month.

Dodo Pizza in Baltiysk was opened by Denis Usalev and Darya Mishueva. They gave up their fancy Moscow jobs and moved to Baltiysk. They took loans and invested all their money in their first pizza shop. Darya dreamt of living on a sea. Denis wanted to start his own business. Now they live on a sea and deliver happiness to their customers every day.

Daria and Denis are deeply involved in their business. They do everything—from buying fresh vegetables to working at the cash desk and doing deliveries. They work 24/7 but don’t look tired—they look happy.

It’s an utmost pleasure to work with such partners as Denis and Darya. It’s a blessing—and a huge responsibility. Thank you for your trust in our brand, Denis and Darya!

 

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Radical transparency: the essence of Dodo Pizza

30 August 2018

Radical transparency: the essence of Dodo Pizza

When people get to know Dodo Pizza, one thing often boggles their minds: our commitment to the idea of radical transparency. Dodo’s dedication to openness manifests in many ways, and here are just a few examples:

09 July 2018

From Canada to Australia: making Dodo Pizza a global franchise

How we form partnerships all over the world

We now receive requests for our franchise from all over the world—from Germany and Nigeria, Canada and Australia, Switzerland and the UAE….

These emails prove to us that people from different countries have started to see the same value in what we’re building (our cutting-edge IT system, up-to-date branding, and agile business culture based on radical transparency).

The question is: what should we do with these requests? The Dodo Pizza brand is already present in 10 countries, from the United States and China to Lithuania and Romania. And to an outsider, our choice...

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Dodo Pizza franchise: company overview

29 May 2018

Dodo Pizza franchise: company overview

Dodo Pizza is a digital-first pizza delivery franchise and one of the world's fastest-growing QSR brands. In 2019, Dodo Pizza saw $313M in system sales (46% growth from 2018).

Currently, Dodo Pizza is the largest pizza company in Russia (it's as big as Domino's and Papa John's combined) and Kazakhstan. Overall, the brand is active in 13 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the US and has more than 500 units.

In one killer package, Dodo Pizza offers

  1. a modern innovative brand,
  2. a fair and radically transparent franchising system,
  3. cutting-edge proprietary IT products (also known as Dodo IS).

In 2018, Dodo Pizza...

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