Toppers Hears You: How the Pizza Giant Is Giving Customers What They Want

If there’s any brand that takes their company values seriously, it’s Toppers. So when the pizza giant says it’s going to give customers what they want, you can expect the company to stick to its word. In August of 2016, Toppers announced its new “straight-up” pricing menu at every one of its 76 locations, enabling customers to order however many toppings they want—for no extra cost. Before then, any additional toppings after the first two could majorly affect the final cost of orders. And with all of Toppers’ amazing toppings, like hand-pinched Italian sausage and nacho cheese, who would ever want to limit themselves to just two?

“The straight-up pricing unlocks the customer's ability to get what they want because they aren’t defined by the price,” says Donette Beattie, Toppers vice president of supply chain. “By giving customers the freedom to pick their toppings, we got to see what was popular, take it from their playbook and put it in our own house recipes.”

To kick off the new year, Toppers is doing just that. Not only has the pizza brand given customers endless topping combinations, but also paid attention to which combos were heating up. Taking customers’ creativity and producing new classics? Ingenious. That’s how Toppers’ two new pizzas, Buffalo Chicken Mac ‘N Cheese and Sausago, came to fruition.

The Buffalo Chicken Mac ‘N Cheese boasts the brand’s famous creamy cheese sauce and macaroni noodles, topped with mozzarella, cheddar, buffalo chicken and bacon, drizzled with hot buffalo sauce. The Sausiago is baked with homemade pizza sauce and hand-pinched Italian sausage, smothered in mozzarella and asiago and topped with Italian seasoning.

“Through promotions inspired by our customer’s creations, we’re honing in on offerings that are desirable and enhance the success of Toppers,” says Beattie. “There’s a group of consumers who don’t want to spend a lot of time putting together an order, but there’s another group who want to have more choices. We take from the creative side of our customer base to come up with awesome combinations. When we get to try the recipes for ourselves, it becomes a no brainer”

Both of the new combinations will be offered as one of Toppers’ house recipes from January 16th until April 23rd. But fans need not worry, they can still recreate the Buffalo Chicken Mac ‘N Cheese and Sausiago pizzas through the continuation of straight-up pricing and building their own pizzas.

“It’s a supply chain dream,” says Beattie. “We’re just kind of rearranging things that are already popular, but in unexpected ways. Anything has the potential to move to promotional feature and earn the right to stay there if the guests tell us they love it.”

Continuing to offer limited-time promotions inspired by customers’ creations, Toppers is constantly in the kitchen trying out popular combinations. The pizza brand, which is known for taking unexpected ingredients that are trending and bringing them to the pizza category, is excited to continue offering pizzas that are as unique as they are loved.