What Pizza Chains Can Teach Us About Adapting to Shifts We Can't Control

When consumer behavior changes faster than your business model, value isn't enough—you need a new game entirely

The pizza industry grew at 1% in 2024. Historically, it’s been 1-2%. That missing percentage point represents something subtle but meaningful: American appetites are changing, and not just because of inflation or economic uncertainty.

Domino’s is posting 5.2% same-store sales growth while competitors struggle. Papa Johns eked out 1% growth. Pizza Hut saw sales decline 5%. Little Caesars isn’t saying much publicly, but industry observers are watching closely. The gap between winners and losers has never been wider.

What’s driving the divergence? It’s not just better marketing or a lucky product innovation. It’s how these companies are responding to forces that are reshaping the entire category—some of which have nothing to do with pizza at all.

The Delivery Problem

For decades, pizza chains controlled their own distribution. You called the shop. They sent a driver. The transaction was direct. That model created a moat—if you wanted delivery pizza, you ordered from a pizza place.

Then third-party platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash changed the equation. Now consumers can order from anyone who partners with these platforms. Thai food. Burgers. Salads. Mexican. Pizza is competing with every restaurant in a 5-mile radius, and the ordering interface treats them all the same.

Domino’s initially resisted aggregators. They’d spent years building their own delivery infrastructure and didn’t want to pay platform commissions. But reality intruded. CEO Russell Weiner recently told analysts he’s “bullish about our long-term prospects on aggregators.” The company joined DoorDash in spring 2024, following an Uber Eats deal in 2023.

Here’s what’s interesting: Domino’s deliveries grew 2.5% in Q3 2024—decent but not spectacular. Carryout orders grew 8.7%. The biggest gains came from customers who picked up their own pizza, not from those who had it delivered.

Why? Because Domino’s has aggressively promoted value deals for carryout: any pizza, any toppings for $9.99 when ordered online. In an inflationary environment where delivery fees and tips can add $10 to your order, picking up the pizza yourself and saving money becomes attractive. Domino’s leaned into that insight.

Papa Johns and Pizza Hut are playing catch-up on aggregators while simultaneously trying to drive carryout. Papa Johns is rolling out improved delivery tracking to 60% of its restaurants by Q1 2026. Pizza Hut launched Byte, Yum’s proprietary software platform to integrate third-party delivery more smoothly. These are defensive moves, trying to compete on someone else’s turf.

The Generational Challenge

Pizza chains have a Gen Z problem. Or rather, Gen Z has options that previous generations didn’t.

Raising Cane’s is exploding. Wingstop is growing. These are chicken-focused brands with simpler menus, higher perceived quality, and a cool factor that traditional pizza chains struggle to match. They’re eating into the same occasions that used to default to pizza: feeding a group, getting something quick, satisfying cravings for fried food.

Pizza chains have responded by leaning harder into wings. Pizza Hut changed its social media profile pictures to say “Wings? Stop”—a direct shot at Wingsop. They’re running promotions like 20 wings for $10 on Wednesdays, using a fake “wingfluencer” character named Brian Flatsworth to promote it. It’s clever, but it’s also reactive. You’re promoting wings because Wingstop is winning, not because wings are your core competency.

Little Caesars has focused on NFL partnerships and Call of Duty sponsorships. They’re betting that aligning with football and gaming will keep them relevant to younger audiences who might not think about pizza by default. The strategy is working—Little Caesars has the highest Gen Z and millennial user base in pizza, with 64% of visitors in September under 45 years old. But it requires constant investment to maintain that positioning.

Domino’s is taking a different approach: leaning into internet culture. They’ve created ads referencing TikTok trends, K-pop, anime, and viral memes. They’re positioning pizza not as a traditional family dinner but as a shareable food for groups—a direct comparison to the single burger you’d get at a fast-food chain. “Feed the crew” messaging explicitly targets friend groups rather than families.

The Unspeakable Threat

About 10% of Americans are currently taking GLP-1 medications like Ozempic or Wegovy. That’s expected to increase as oral versions become available and prices come down. These drugs suppress appetite dramatically. Users report eating 70-80% less pizza, burgers, and dessert while increasing consumption of salads, fruits, and lean proteins.

A BTIG survey of 1,000 GLP-1 users found that 70% reported visiting restaurants “less” or “much less” since starting medication. They’re cutting back specifically on the indulgent categories that drive pizza sales. If the pizza industry grew 1% instead of 2% in 2024, it’s reasonable to wonder if GLP-1 adoption explains that gap.

Most pizza executives are publicly cautious. Little Caesars’ CMO told Ad Age: “We’ve done some initial analysis to see if it’s impacting the way consumers are choosing to purchase at Little Caesars, and so far, we haven’t been able to tie anything specifically to any sort of GLP-1 medications.”

That’s PR speak for “we’re monitoring this very closely but don’t want to admit it’s a problem yet.” Because if 20% of your customer base is taking medication that reduces their appetite for pizza by half, you have a structural issue that value deals and chicken wings won’t solve.

The smarter response—which nobody is attempting—would be to develop a pizza that actually appeals to GLP-1 users. Smaller portions. Higher protein. Less greasy. Marketed as a choice that fits within their dietary needs. But that would require admitting the problem exists and investing in product innovation for a segment that might not want pizza at all.

What Value Really Means Now

Domino’s success with its $9.99 deal reveals something important: value isn’t just about price. It’s about transparency and control.

When you order Domino’s carryout at $9.99, you know exactly what you’re paying. No delivery fee. No tip. No surge pricing. You control the transaction by picking it up yourself. That certainty matters in an environment where consumers are stressed about inflation and surprised by fees that add up at checkout.

Compare that to third-party delivery, where your $15 pizza becomes $30 after fees, tip, and service charges. The convenience is real, but so is the sticker shock. Domino’s bet that enough customers would choose certainty and savings over convenience—and they were right.

Pizza Hut’s Big Dinner Box—two pizzas, breadsticks, and wings for $19.99—is trying to compete on bundle value. Papa Johns’ Papa Dippa pizza and limited-time offers for rewards members are trying to generate buzz. These are tactics, not strategies. They’re reacting to Domino’s rather than carving out a unique position.

The Structural Question

Here’s what nobody in the pizza industry wants to acknowledge: the category might have peaked.

Americans are eating less carbohydrate-heavy food. Weight-loss medications are reducing total calorie consumption for a growing segment of the population. Gen Z has more options than any previous generation. Third-party delivery platforms have commoditized the transaction. Premium fast-casual chains are eating into occasions that used to default to pizza.

None of these trends are reversing. So the question isn’t “how do we grow pizza sales by 2% again?” The question is “what business are we actually in if pizza consumption is structurally declining?”

Domino’s has an answer, whether they’d articulate it this way or not: they’re in the value convenience food business, and pizza happens to be the product. That mindset allows them to focus on operational efficiency, digital ordering, carryout optimization, and partnerships with aggregators. The pizza is almost incidental.

Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, and Little Caesars are still thinking about pizza first. They’re trying to win by having better pizza, or more wings, or cooler marketing. But if the category is shrinking, being the best pizza brand just means you’re shrinking slower than your competitors.

What Marketers Should Learn

The pizza wars illustrate a broader truth: when macro forces shift against your category, clever marketing can buy time but not solve the problem. You need to rethink the business model.

That might mean changing what you sell. Or where you sell it. Or how customers access it. Or who your target customer is. But it definitely means accepting that the old rules don’t apply anymore, even if they worked for fifty years.

Domino’s is winning not because they have better marketers than Papa Johns. They’re winning because they made harder decisions earlier. They invested in technology when it was expensive. They prioritized carryout when delivery was the norm. They partnered with aggregators when it meant admitting they couldn’t control distribution anymore.

Those decisions were uncomfortable. They required acknowledging that the world had changed in ways that made their historical advantages less valuable. But they positioned Domino’s to thrive in the current environment rather than pine for the past.

If your category is facing headwinds—whether from technology, changing consumer preferences, new competition, or external factors like weight-loss drugs—you have the same choice. You can optimize what you’re doing and hope things improve. Or you can ask harder questions about whether what you’re doing still makes sense.

The pizza chains that survive the next decade won’t be the ones with the best pizza. They’ll be the ones who figured out what business they’re really in and adapted accordingly.