At the start of the new year, Peter Piper Pizza announced it was adding Dippin’ Dots’ beaded ice cream products to its 40 locations in Arizona. Exactly a week later, the company announced a partnership with Buddy V’s Cake Slice, a Virtual Dining Concepts’ brand created with “Cake Boss” Buddy Valastro at the tail end of the pandemic.
The two new sweets options add to the chain’s signature crunch dessert platform, which has innovated beyond its traditional cinnamon crunch. The objective of this new menu news should be fairly obvious: “We want to see our overall dessert category grow,” CMO Genaro Perez said during a recent interview, adding that it’s low-single digits currently.
Though it’s way too early to know if there has been any movement here, Perez said so far, every restaurant has been selling cakes.
“Which is positive,” he said. “We think there is a lot of incremental opportunity because we identified behaviors that are proof these products will work.”
Those behaviors include Peter Piper’s fundraising and events channels – two huge revenue streams for the company. Perez said the company gives back 15-to-20% of its weekly fundraising events to schools or organizations who choose use its restaurants for hosting. And, as an eatertainment concept complete with games like air hockey and skee-ball to video games, the company is “constantly” hosting kids’ birthday parties. With the Buddy V’s partnership, Peter Piper believes it is solving a major pain point for parents.
“We mostly cater to families with children between 8 and 12 years old and they use us a lot for their birthday parties, but we know families always bring a cake. We allow them to bring a cake,” Perez said. “So, when Buddy V’s came to mind, we knew this could be a win/win. It’s a well-known brand and a fantastic product, and we know families appreciate the option of having the cake there already.”
The Buddy V’s partnership is a traditional licensed opportunity; the pizza chain pays royalty fees on the cakes that are sold, whether in store or to-go, which Perez said is another big opportunity.
“You can order pizza, wings and cake now for your at-home parties,” he said.
Dippin’ Dots’ integration is a bit different. The case is visible in-store and the product is targeted to customers who are on site for those weekday fundraising events. Peter Piper tested Dippin’ Dots for about three months in two locations, and the results inspired this bigger rollout.
“We saw a behavior change. During weekdays, a lot of product moved on fundraising nights. With (Dippin’ Dots), the kid needs to be there to sell it, but knowing the volume of fundraisers we do – about 5 to 6% of our total revenue – and how many kids go through our doors on those nights, it was a no-brainer,” Perez said.
Because the company intentionally targeted these products to the birthday party and fundraising crowds, Perez is confident they will help grow the dessert business. The company has, and continues to, innovate with its crunch platform, but it hasn’t moved the needle.
“The dessert category is hard to move, but I think these products provide big opportunities to do that because of how we’re positioning them and because they both come with strong brand recognition already,” Perez aid. “We won’t suffer from ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ with these two products. Any growth is good because it’s incremental.”
Perez notes that the company’s incremental opportunities won’t end at dessert and that it is currently “working on a few things to complete the meal.” For now, however, the focus is squarely on dessert, which seems to be having a bit of a renaissance across the industry. According to new data from Yelp, for instance, most of the new restaurants that opened in 2023 were dessert concepts, which grew 66% year-over-year.
With these two new additions, Peter Piper Pizza now sells confetti, vanilla rainbow and chocolate fudge cakes by the slice, starting at $9.99, and rainbow ice, chocolate chip cookie dough, cotton candy, and cookies ‘n cream Dippin’ Dots in 5-ounce cups for $4.99.
Contact Alicia Kelso at [email protected]