It’s a black cake for Domino’s Pizza. After working with a local company seven years ago to launch the brand in Italy, the chain’s last restaurant in pizza’s gastronomic home is closing, according to Bloomberg News.
The US company partnered with a franchisor, ePizza SpA, to open the first Domino’s in Milan in 2015, announcing that “we’re going where no major pizza brand has gone before.” EPizza would open 28 more Domino’s branches in the country and plans to open hundreds more, the news service reported.
It was the kind of arrangement — American know-how in food delivery and Italian know-how in a cherished national dish — that might have looked good on paper.
However, according to Bloomberg, ePizza faced increasing competition from Italian pizza makers and delivery services, particularly as COVID-19 closed restaurants in Italy in 2020.
Meanwhile, ePizza’s promise of “100% tomato sauce and mozzarella” doesn’t seem to have won the hearts and palates of enough Italians to remain competitive in the country credited with inventing the cherished national dish.
“We attribute the issue to significantly increased competition in the food delivery market, with both organized chains and mom-and-pop restaurants delivering food, service and restaurants reopening post-pandemic, and consumers on the go with revenge spending are,” ePizza said in a report to investors, Bloomberg reported.
A Domino’s representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Alain Scherter