The Personal Pan Pizza is growing up. Pizza Hut‘s new Crafted Flattz is a limited-run pizza-for-one that reimagines a nostalgic, kid-friendly menu item with elevated recipes for adults and a new price tag. Costing just $5 before 5 p.m, it’s part of the company’s strategy to offer smaller pizzas for less.
The Crafted Flattz comes in five flavors designed for taste buds that have evolved beyond plain cheese pizza, like a spicy Nashville Hot Chicken and The Ultimate, which comes with caramelized onions and roasted peppers.
With the average cost of a fast food meal in the U.S. now sitting at $11.56, according to LendingTree, Pizza Hut is jumping onto a larger trend of midrange restaurants emphasizing value to compete with fast food restaurants. Why spend more at a burger joint when you can grab a grown-up Personal Pan Pizza instead? With a portion size for the Ozempic era, the Crafted Flattz is priced for inflation and timed to incentivize Pizza Hut for lunch.
In Pizza Hut’s ad for the Crafted Flattz, a woman bites into a pizza in a set designed like an upscale, retro-modern Pizza Hut pizzeria for millennials. It’s warmly lit, but dim and decorated in deep reds, and she’s shown popping a pepperoni into her mouth before it’s all revealed to be a daydream interrupted by her kids barging into the kitchen.
“Choose from five handcrafted recipes you won’t want to share,” the ad’s narrator says as the woman protects her pizza from her kids trying to grab a slice. “And you don’t have to.” The Crafted Flattz is meant to be a little treat. Premium taste at a discount price.
Pizza Hut makes up 11% of parent company Yum! Brands divisional operating profit, CEO David Gibbs said on the company’s earnings call earlier this month. He said recent efforts at adding new menu items like Cheesy Bites and Ranch Lovers Flights didn’t provide a sufficient value message for new customers, but promotions like a $2 Personal Pan Pizza Tuesday or “Wing Wednesday” did. This new pizza-for-one concept fits in that strategy, but upcharges with premium flavors.
Pizza wars have long been a race to the bottom as chains battle each other on price. Pizza Hut is no exception, but it’s found that offering pizza more affordably can also mean simply offering smaller portions. In an attempt to grow its market share, Pizza Hut is betting it can attract more customers with smaller pizzas at a smaller price.
