CELEBRATING 35 YEARS IN PIZZA GAME
DON Meij is obsessive about quite a few things. He loves technology and gadgets, is a car enthusiast, loves cooking on his backyard barbecue and, naturally, as the chief executive of Domino’s Pizza, he really loves scoffing pizza.
“I crave pizza and people think it’s crazy,” Meij said as he celebrates 35 years at Domino’s Pizza, where he started as a delivery boy in Brisbane and now heads the $6bn publicly listed pizza empire.
“I had pizza today! I’ve had pizza twice in the last six days!”
Back then he was helping out a mate at Silvio’s Dial-a-pizza and studying to be a teacher.
“He needed more drivers, he knew how much I loved driving my car, I’m a bit of a car nut, and yes, I remember in the beginning the insecurities of just getting out there on the road and knocking on somebody’s door.”
But as he got closer to working in a real classroom as a teacher he realised it wasn’t w for him. “I was wa toward the end of o my degree and I realised that I didn’t d want to be a highs school teacher and a there was a full-time job available a in the t store I was at a in Redcliffe, just ju north of Brisbane, Bri I applied appl to be the manager manag and I began to manage that. But I thought it was only going to be for, like nine months before I would start a new degree and here I am some 35 years later.”
Back then the universe of pizza styles was pretty limited: an anchovy splayed across the top was considered sophisticated.
“When I started we had five pizzas on the menu … well today we’ve got five different crust variables, we’ve got menus that could be 20 to 30 different pizzas and the variety of toppings from camembert to feta or prawn.
“We do pulled pork, we put duck on pizza, wagyu and some of the ingredients we sell around the world get even more dramatic than that, such as in places like Japan.”
Silvio’s became well known in Brisbane’s northern suburbs for its bright yellow delivery van with the giant red telephone handle on its roof and it later morphed into Domino’s Pizza, which Meij would take to the ASX in 2005 with a float price of $2.20. By 2021 it was trading just below $160 a share.
Meij still sees himself as the entrepreneur who began delivering pizza in school and then university to bankroll his dreams of building a business and it’s a philosophy he hopes is part of Domino’s culture.
“We still see ourselves as entrepreneurs operating a business,” he said.
“I’m obviously a public company CEO, and I’m very well aware of all the proper governance issues to operate a business, but at the same time in my heart … I feel like I’m an entrepreneur.”