Despite the fact that the covid-19 pandemic ended the dream of some entrepreneurs to grow and expand, others whose plans were already underway had no alternative but to move forward and face this difficult circumstance.
happened to Little Caesar’s Pizza, a company founded in 1959, in Detroit (Michigan), with more than six decades of operations and presence in 28 countries. Their landing in the country coincided with that of the pandemic, and although this delayed the opening of their first points, turning back was not an option, according to what Jaime Press Eisenstein, their manager in Colombia, told EL TIEMPO.
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How was the landing in Colombia?
Colombia has always been a target market for the company, it has already used everything planned to start at the beginning of 2020, but the pandemic got through and delayed us for a few months until August. Despite the hard times, he asked to continue opening the first two stores that month. Two years later I can say that we ended up with 14 points in 2022, of which 10 are in Bogotá and 4 in Cali. The public’s reception of the company’s value proposition has been very positive.
What do you think has been that factor that has positioned you in the country?
I believe that our disruptive and innovative proposal, since each of our stores is a small pizza factory in which we prepare the dough daily, the sauce made with natural tomatoes, which always leads us to offer our customers a fresh dough product , we do not receive it from a frozen distribution center. We have three main pillars: one is quality, the second is one of the greatest advantages, we deliver a pizza in 30 seconds fresh out of the oven. The third pillar is a competitive price that breaks somewhat with what is established in the market, since we are, in some cases, almost 45 percent below the competition and all our products are large.
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What is that average cost that makes the difference?
All our pizzas are large, 34 centimeters, 14 inches, 8 slices, and if we take a reference, such as pepperoni, we start from 18,900 pesos.
How did they manage to dispatch a pizza in just 30 seconds?
It is a reality and is based on planning. A store with a disturbed management team to plan, project and execute an entire operational process can achieve this objective, because it allows it to anticipate demand. What we do is forecast, based on our information systems, the pizzas sold per hour and flavor. For example, if I know that at one point on a Thursday between 11 and 12 noon I sell 11 pepperoni pizzas, well, these are being produced and shipped as customers arrive, with a very low waste rate because we are a high-volume business, so it is a bet that the brand learned to make and we found that it is a differentiating element in terms of pizza consumption, reaching a point, trying it and that it is really fresh, of good quality and at best price, without having to wait a long time.
In the next 5 years we plan to open some 50 more stores in the country —we close 2022 with 14 in Bogotá and Cali—
What comes next for the company after overcoming the ordeal of the pandemic?
We build stores of at least 140 square meters, we are talking about an important infrastructure, which generates quite important labor work, to which are added the investments in adaptations, the equipment that is used, for which we are talking about quite a remarkable long-term gamble.
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In the next 5 years we plan to open some 50 more stores in the country —we close 2022 with 14 in Bogotá and Cali—, in as many cities as we can reach as we take the temperature of how the markets are waiting for us. customers. After Bogotá and Cali, we are defining Barranquilla, Cartagena and Medellín as the safest openings.
How was last year?
We closed with an average sales of about 13 million slices. By point of sale we are a very high volume business given the characteristics of the quality, price and time proposal. We are talking about more than 300,000 customers served through self-services and 1.5 million families that this year have tried the brand.
ECONOMY AND BUSINESS
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