Spreading wings beyond Moscow

GLOBAL pizza brands Domino’s and Papa John’s are preparing an assault on Russia’s provinces, betting they can turn a profit far from Moscow as online card payments become more widespread and consumers get to know foreign brands better. While stayat-home Muscovites can order an array of international pizza brands from Sbarro to Domino’s to Papa John’s, regional cities such as Rostov-on-Don and Nizhny Novgorod are still chiefly the preserve of small local chains. Multiple challenges have kept global fast food brands wedded to major Russian cities, including patchy transport links, bureaucratic delays, finding an army of chefs who can maintain quality, as well as the sheer cost of shipping often perishable ingredients across a vast country that spans 11 time zones. Western fast food chains have also had to adapt menus to suit Russian palates better, once the allure of new foreign tastes has worn off. One of Domino’s best-selling pizzas is the “Russian” with 13 toppings including potato, beef, pork, bacon, mushrooms, pepperoni and cheese to help ward off the cold. But Domino’s Pizza’s Russian franchisee, DP Eurasia, believes the time is now right to expand beyond Moscow, where sales at the 76 outlets it had at the end of March are far outstripping growth in its main market Turkey. “The company has done its own research and realised that there’s almost no quality pizza in the regions, which gives us enormous ground for development,” said DP Eurasia’s head of Russian development Elena Ivanova. – Reuters