Students' zone - A selection of Box Cases

<< back to list

Box case 7.2

Pizza Hut – new product development

To the uninitiated, the development of a new pizza might be seen as a trivial
selection of a new set of toppings. However, in the fast-food business where
product consistency and fast ‘roll-out’ are essential, it is not that simple. Pizza
Hut has a seven-stage NPD process called the FRPP – the ‘Field Ready Product
Process’. This process ensures that a robust product is developed, by defining
the steps that are necessary to develop the recipe, select suppliers for the ingredients,
test the ‘manufacturability’ of the product in a typical Pizza Hut restaurant,
and ensure positive consumer reactions to the new product. Everything
is done to ensure that no time is wasted between a product concept being
selected and it being available at the majority of the chain’s restaurants. Part
of the FRPP ensures that the employees in the restaurants are adequately
trained on the product before it is released. Increasingly, competition in the
fast food industry is based on special meals that are only available for limited
periods and matched to major events, such as sport championships, or film
releases. In such cases, Pizza Hut has found that a reliable but flexible NPD
process is essential, even if the resulting product is ‘only’ a pizza.