The fast casual pizza boom, featuring customized, artisan-style pizzas made in less than 5 minutes, continues to gain momentum in 2014 with more players entering the field every day.
In this round-up, we give you the meatiest factoids about this segment, so you’ll know exactly what to expect before putting your pizza in the oven.
- Pizza as fast casual was recently named the No. 8 trend on the top 10 trends of the 2013 list of Fast Casual Top 100 Movers & Shakers.
- Market share for the fast casual pizza segment has increased 14% over the past five years and is expected to outpace that of the quick service segment between 2013 and 2016. Source
- Pizza restaurant sales grew 10% from 2007 to 2011, and a growth of 16.7% is predicted from 2012 to 2017, reaching a projected $44 billion in 2017. Source
- Pizza restaurants account for over 6% of sales in the restaurant industry. Source
- The pizza segment has been responsible for 17% of post-recession growth annually in fast casual sales. Source
- Pizza is second only to hamburgers in overall sales in the U.S. Source
- It is estimated that 10% of all restaurant openings in the U.S. are now pizza concepts. Source
- Pizza is now featured on 40% of all restaurant menus in the U.S. Source
- 93% of Americans eat at least one pizza per month. Source
- 26% of Americans eat pizza at least once a week. Source
- A study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that not only do one in eight Americans eat pizza on any given day, a majority of them – 59% - eat it at dinner. Source
- According to statistics from Franchise Disclosure Documents, Americans eat on average 100 acres of pizza daily or 350 slices per second. Source
- A survey conducted by the PMQ Pizza Magazine indicates that 86% of pizza lovers would choose their own toppings rather than order a pre-customized pizza. Source
- Fresh topping requests have risen 6% since 2010.
- In Technomic’s Pizza Consumer Trend Report, 65% of consumers polled indicated they agree completely or strongly agree that they would like more restaurants or pizza establishments to offer premium ingredients or toppings, while 55% wanted all-natural toppings and 41% were looking for locally sourced ingredients. (Source: Foodable Network)
