The Entrepreneur | The Dutch New York Pizza comes into Norwegian hands

According to Philippe Vorst, CEO and co-founder of New York Pizza, the acquisition will allow the chain to grow faster than if the company were trying to do it on its own. The acquisition is still subject to customary approvals. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.

Pizza dough maker Euro Pizza Products also part of agreement

New York Pizza has a total of 232 outlets run by franchisees. Of these, 229 are located in the Netherlands. At the end of last year, a first branch was opened in Leuven, Belgium. In Belgium, at least five more points of sale are to be added this year. New York Pizza also has two locations in Cologne, Germany.

Also part of the agreement is the maker of pizza dough Euro Pizza Products, which also purchases and distributes other pizza ingredients and spices to the points of sale. The dough is already exported to eighteen countries. Finnish pizza chain Kotipizza, which is already owned by Orkla, is the largest external buyer of the dough.

New York Pizza in 2020: 11.5 million pizzas and a turnover of 54.7 million euros

New York Pizza is headquartered in Amstelveen and currently employs 75 people. The company will remain an independent part of Orkla’s Consumer & Financial Investments division. Side by side with Kotipizza, that’s how it sounds.

New York Pizza sold 11.5 million pizzas last year and generated a turnover of 54.7 million euros. This includes income from dough production. Since 2008, the chain’s turnover has grown by 12 percent year on year, partly due to the opening of new points of sale, but also by selling more pizzas per branch.

Growth is part of the DNA of the pizza chain

At the end of December, Philippe Vorst was a guest on the De Ondernemer Radio broadcast. In it he already told New York Pizza that he was looking for further growth of the franchise chain abroad. “If we don’t grow, we’re going backwards.”

The goal is to have about three hundred branches by 2023, says Vorst in the podcast, which can be heard below. Vorst says that growth is part of the company’s DNA. This is only possible with good teams with a diverse composition, he says in front of the microphone and then explains his role. It has been a lesson from this corona period: to grow you have to invest in people. ,,And what have I learned from this period? I move more into the background. I want to give the management space to run the tent. It’s not allowed one man show turn into.”