After a decade of stagnation, Pizza Hut makes aggressive expansion in the country

The order of the array is not taking the foot off the gas, despite the crisis, and to pursue the goal of opening 30 units this year, 50 more in the next Pizza Hut inShare Guarulhos International Airport: 33 thousand pizzas are sold per month Pizza Hut from Congonhas Airport In Brazil since the ' 80, Pizza Hut started to draw in 2012, an aggressive plan for expansion, which is leaving the paper just at the moment when the Brazilian economy faces the worst recession of the last 25 years. The order of the array, the American Yum! Brands-which also controls the network of fast food KFC-, is not taking the foot off the gas, despite the crisis, and to pursue the goal of opening 30 units this year, 50 more in the next and come in 2018 with an annual expansion rate of 100 new units. This is already the growth of fast-food restaurants like Burger King, but for Pizza Hut in Brazil the feat is unprecedented.
Between 2001 and 2010, for example, the company has expanded the number of 67 to 71 restaurants only. During this period, the Yum! Brands commanded the Brazilian market from an Office located in Miami and had already decided to pull out of the country the confrère KFC, which is back with 22 Diners. In 2012, the American company, settled definitively in São Paulo under the command of the Mexican Agustin Dominguez Larrea, Director of expansion of Yum! Brands.
That year, still talking about growth of 3.5% of the Brazilian GDP and the basic interest rate, the Selic, was at 9%. But the winds changed direction around here. "In fact, the scenario is another", says the Executive. "The positive side is that we have adopted a model of expansion that brings us more opportunities than problems right now." Larrea refers to smaller units which began to be developed in Brazil by suggestion of a franchisee.
The model Express was tailor-made for the food courts of malls and to meet who wants to eat a slice of pizza, without paying much or spend time. The idea was taken to Headquarters for the largest and longest franchisee network in Brazil, the businessman Jorge Aguirre. He owns 36 restaurants in São Paulo, which last year took in $ 160 million together. "I wanted to find a quick way to multiplication of points of sale and distribution of the brand," he says.
It was based on that format, and in the delivery of the us, which brought the network structured its growth in recent years. Between 2012 and 2014, 33 units were inaugurated. Today, in total, are 95, but Yum! see potential to reach 1 000. The pizzerias leaner managed to ensure the resumption of the Pizza Hut in Brazil and were exported to some of the 130 countries where the network is present, including Thailand, Malaysia and France. Worldwide, there are now 140 units in this format.
The balcony of Aguirre and his longtime relationship with the brand led, last year, the Board of Directors of Yum!. He is one of the nine franchisees, out of a total of 140 in the world, who participate in the collegial body.
Eye of the owner
To consolidate the growth of the brand in Brazil, Pizza Hut will open for the first time in the country, own units, which will serve as a laboratory for promotions and new formats. The five units will be opened between this month and November. After many years, Pizza Hut seems to be hitting his hand, in the opinion of the consultant Sergio Molinari, of the Food Consulting. "She spent a lot of time standing and now is doing what all the others are," he says. "Power networks cannot be ruled out, without growing, or lose market and money."
With the expansion model which adopted in Brazil, says Larrea, the crisis is affecting less the company for two reasons: customers who are looking for a cheaper meal have migrated from the restaurant to the Food Court of the Mall, while the contracts of rent in the shopping centres are also more flexible.
Today, the Brazilian operation of Yum! Brands, with Pizza Hut and KFC, which have not yet took off, represents less than 1% of the company's revenue. In the past, the company recorded revenue of $ 13.2 billion-nearly half coming from China, where, a year ago, Yum! If involved in a food safety scandal. The episode affected the results of the company at the end of 2014, but investors have already begun to make peace with the company. The markets with the highest growth potential of the group are the Indian and Brazilian, in that order.