A pizza chain at the centre of recent controversy over some of its advertisements is in more hot water after telling its stores to reduce the amount of toppings on its pizzas to save money.
TPF Restaurants, which owns the New Zealand master franchise for the Hell Pizza chain, sent a memo in September to all Hell outlets, telling them to reduce the amount of mushrooms, chicken, pineapple and cheese on many of its pizzas by between 10 and 25 percent, the Sunday Star-Times reported.
The newspaper said the memo, titled Improving Gross Profit Through Pizza Topping Standardisation provided new recipe sheets with revised topping portions.
The memo made it plain that customers would not be told.
"Customers will not notice the difference when these changes are made but your P&L (profit and loss statement) will."
But Hell Systems, the company which founded the chain and which sold the New Zealand franchise to TPF was not happy with the changes.
Hell Systems director Warren Powell said one of the terms of sale of its New Zealand operation to TPF was that the pizzas had to be consistent with the company's international standards. And the proposed changes were not.
After Hell Systems complained, TPF told all Hell stores to cancel the changes and revert to the old standards.
Mr Powell said many Hell outlets had ignored that instruction and were continuing to make pizzas with the reduced toppings. "We are concerned at the long-term harm the changes could have on the brand."
Hell Pizza has attracted attention through controversial ad campaigns. Most recently it was forced to apologise and pull a Halloween advertisement depicting Sir Edmund Hillary dancing on his grave.
