Research, innovation keep this pizza firm on top of its game

MANILA, Philippines - Perhaps no pizza company in the history of Philippines has introduced so many flavors than Greenwich Pizza.

For the past couple of years, the company has been busy innovating and introducing an array of exciting pizza flavors, all designed to suit the Filipino palate for pizza.

It’s not an overnight thing as Greenwich puts a tremendous amount of research to every new pizza flavor they introduce into the market.

In fact, so thorough is their research for new pizza flavors that they have turned the whole pizza making into science, according to Greenwich marketing director Luis Velasco.

So whenever you sink your teeth in a delightful slice of Greenwich pizza, know that there was a lot of research and science put into every tasty morsel.

“Greenwich’s journey to be the Philippines’ best tasting pizza has been a multi-year process of relentless Pizza innovation. As consumers’ tastes and lifestyles evolve, Greenwich aims to keep up and makes sure that it conforms to what Filipinos like in their pizza,” Velasco said.

Velasco said that they’ve put a two to three year program to pulse and do research on what Pinoy consumers truly want in their pizza which has become a part of the Filipino dining experience.

Through research, he said they found out that most Filipinos love a lot of toppings and cheese on their pizza and want all of those in a perfect crust.

The Overloaded Pizzas were the first of these major innovations. Featuring twice more toppings than the average pizza, the Overloaded pizzas were able to grow Greenwich Pizza sales by as much 60 percent for the campaign, he added.

Another exciting innovation launched this year was Greenwich’s all new crust- freshly made everyday, which is now available in their 225 stores all over the country.

Velasco explained that the crust innovation has been years in the making.

“Through research, I think we’ve hit the kind of crust that our consumer wants. They want the crispiness when they bite into it but they want the softness and chewiness when they’re eating their pizza, so that was what we try to achieve for the crust,” he said.

He said a thorough research has been done through their research and development (RND) section, even going as far as other countries to make sure that the new crust is at par with world-class pizzas.

“In coming up with a special crust, first we’ve launched a survey and asked consumers what they want in a crust and found out that most of them wants a bit of crispiness and chewiness but still want to retain the quality of crust even after 30 minutes/one hour and then after the surveys we put it all to a test and got consumer reply that led us to perfect our pizza crust,” he reiterated.

It took them nine months to get the whole system working, Velasco said. Next year, Velasco added that they’re set to improve and add more cheese in their pizzas.

Another factor that they’ve put a lot of attention to is the amount of cheese on their pizzas.

 “Filipinos love lots of cheese on their pizzas. Three months ago, we’ve launched the seven cheese pizza which is composed of  mozzarella, cheddar, parmesan, blue cheese, cream cheese and edam cheese. The response we got from our consumers was very heartening,” he said.

Next year, Velasco added that they’re set to improve and add more cheese in their pizzas.

But despite the many flavors that Greenwich has introduced over the years, Filipinos always go back to Hawaiian Pizza.

“Despite countless innovations, Filipinos still go back to Hawaiaan. Parang hawaian is their comfort flavor. Another best seller is the Greenwich special overload which has 30 toppings.

Through the years, they’ve also introduced mouth-watering pizza flavors like seven cheese, philly cheese steak, meat and cheese and even seasonal products like triple ham and cheese flavor which was fit for the Christmas season.

Velasco said keeping the Greenwich pizza a notch ahead is concurrent with their dream to expand and become a global brand.

Greenwich today is on the cusp of moving into the global arena.

“Because we’re looking ahead and want to go international like our other brands like Jollibee, Chowking, Red Ribbon. We are looking at bringing Greenwich out of the Philippines and into the world,” he said.

“ I think now we’re more innovative, more dynamic, we’re relevant to our target market, we’ve kept a step to what our consumer demands and we’re a place where our market is proud to go to and be seen in, and we take pride in being the tasting pizza and most innovative pizza in the country,” Velasco said.