Domino’s Pizza has closed its last 29 stores in Italy amid stiff competition from traditional pizzerias that started offering delivery services during the pandemic.
It arrived in the home of pizza in 2015, when it had over 12,000 stores globally, with the aspiration of gaining a 2% market share.
The American pizza chain intended to win customers over with “purely Italian” ingredients including “100%” mozzarella and tomato sauce, NBC reported.
Products like prosciutto di parma, gorgonzola, grana padano and mozzarella di bufala campana were also used.
Domino’s originally opened stores in Milan before expanding to cities including Rome, Bologna and Turin.
It wanted to open hundreds of branches across the country by 2030, relying on deliveries as its unique selling point.
However, authentic Italian pizzerias were forced to offer delivery services during Covid-19 when eating out was heavily restricted.
There was also tough competition from home food delivery services, which offered more than just pizza, such as Deliveroo PLC (LSE:ROO), Just Eat Takeaway.com NV (LSE:JET, NASDAQ:GRUB) and Glovo, Bloomberg added.
Meanwhile, Deliveroo confirmed it is consulting on plans to leave the Netherlands, which would be the latest exit from a major European market for the company. The Netherlands is the home of rival Just Eat.