OMAHA, Neb. -- Godfather's Pizza, a major franchise serving the convenience store industry, unveiled its new national headquarters campus in Omaha, Neb., which features a state-of-the-art virtual c-store in its research and development facility.
The 24,000 sq.-ft. headquarters complex incorporates not only offices for its corporate employees, but also Godfather's Pizza's test kitchen, training facilities, a sensory room and a production studio for photographing products and shooting TV commercials. But the centerpiece of the new facility, according to [image-nocss] Godfather's Pizza's CEO Ron Gartlan, is the virtual c-store which allows R&D and training staff to test recipes and preparation techniques in space designed to simulate c-store conditions.
We recreated a c-store setting in our new R&D facility to help us design products and procedures that will succeed in the challenging conditions unique to convenience stores, truck plazas and airport foodservice settings, Gartlan said. We believe this is a unique facility in the pizza business.
Godfather's Pizza c-store outlets have been designed to be flexible and to operate out of as little as 200 square feet, said Bill Methven, senior vice president and manager of nontraditional franchise sales. With our new virtual c-store,' we can be sure our c-store franchisees provide their customers with the unique taste and quality Godfather's Pizza is known for, even in the smallest, most difficult layouts, and with procedures that are simple enough for hourly staff to execute consistently.
Franchisees of Godfather's Pizza saw the new R&D facility for the first time at a VIP reception in Omaha.
Godfather's Pizza has become the fastest growing and highest gross margin brand in our portfolio of food service concepts, said Steve Oliver, director of food services for Amerada Hess Corp., which operates 600 c-store outlets throughout the East Coast. We congratulate Godfather's Pizza on their new R&D facility and the commitment they've made to the success of their c-store franchisees.
Mike Herman, director of c-store operations and travel stores for Love's
Travel Shops & Country Stores, Inc., echoed this reaction. Godfather's Pizza's new R&D facility, and their focus on the needs of c-store and truck plaza operators, shows why they have been such a hit at Love's, he said. Our locations, on average, hit 70% gross profit margins, and we have seen little, if any, cannibalization with our other branded QSR offeringswhich is the mark of a strong foodservice brand.
Godfather's Pizza's new headquarters, designed with room for 20% growth, positions the 33-year-old company for continued success in the c-store industry, as well as other nontraditional operations such as express service in schools, colleges and airports.
The new R&D kitchen has a video monitor allowing technicians to be signaled when it is time to bring a hot pizza to the production studio to be photographed. The photographs are used not only in restaurants and advertising but also in training DVDs and other materials.
The new sensory rooms allow Godfather's Pizza to test new products and preparations with consumers. Taste-test subjects arrive through a separate entrance and are served through sliding panels without seeing how the product is prepared, to prevent influencing their reactions. One of the things we value is feedback from customers, and this is just one method for getting it, Gartlan said. Such research has kept Godfather's Pizza in touch with changing consumer tastes.
Young consumers, for example, prefer their sauce to be spicier or have more bite, and aren't afraid to try new combinations of ingredients, he added.
Regardless of age or other demographics, Gartlan said, Godfather's Pizza's customers prefer lots of ingredients, which is why the company advertises that it sells pizza pie piled high.
The key is making Godfather's Pizza's unique taste easy and profitable for our c-store partners to duplicate in real-world conditions. Our new R&D facility, and our virtual c-store' in particular, helps us do that.
Omaha, Neb.-based Godfather's Pizza has 137 franchisees that operate approximately 600 franchise traditional and nontraditional locations across the country. Approximately half of them are nontraditional. Godfather's Pizza also offers of grab-and-go items for nontraditional franchises such as chicken wings, chicken fingers, premade bread sticks, pepperoni rolls, prepackaged salads, desserts and more.
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