How Papa John’s created the Papadia—and launched a whole new menu category (2024)

Photo courtesy of Papa John's

Papa John’s is a “pizza first” concept, admits Scott Rodriguez, senior VP of menu strategy and product innovation. But the brand was eager to get more lunch business, and he figured sandwiches could be the ticket into that daypart.

“We thought about ways we could enter the sandwich world by leveraging our fresh pizza dough,” he said, “and we thought of the piadina—an Italian handheld street food. It was a way to expand the menu but stay within our wheelhouse.”

R&D began pre-pandemic

Rodriguez and the team started developing the piadinas—branded Papadias in sync with the Papa John’s name—in 2019. In their basic form, the sandwiches are made by rolling or folding a thin Italian flatbread around a filling and baking it.

“We have four sizes of fresh, hand-stretched pizza dough, and we chose one that could be divided into piadina-size portions,” he said. The dough is not only smaller, it’s thinner, but it had to go through the pizza ovens at the same temperature, time and speed as the pizzas. Papa John’s also bakes its own breadsticks and garlic knots in the pizza oven.

It took some trial and error to get the timing and thickness of the dough right so it could be consistently executed across all 3,298 U.S. units, said Rodriguez.

There were also hits and misses with the filling ingredients. It was a challenge to figure out the perfect amount and types of ingredients to put inside the baked dough—some fillings and sauces leaked out during baking and others didn’t hold well.

“We wanted to build the piadinas with both hot and cold elements in the filling to mimic regular sandwiches,” said Rodriguez, “but some of the fresh vegetables didn’t hold up post-bake. This was problematic with delivery orders, because the sandwiches would sit too long.”

After extensive testing, it worked out that three to four filling ingredients plus sauce was optimal—stuffing more into the dough influenced the bake time and consistency.

The final four

After almost a year in development, Papa John’s officially launched the Papadias in four varieties.

The original group includes:

• The Italian, filled with Alfredo sauce, spicy Italian sausage, salami, mozzarella and banana peppers; served with a pizza sauce dipping cup.

• Philly Cheesesteak, filled with sliced Philly steak, onions and green peppers, mozzarella and Philly sauce; served with a garlic sauce dipping cup.

• Grilled BBQ Chicken & Bacon, filled with grilled chicken, bacon, onions and mozzarella, drizzled with sweet and smoky barbecue sauce; served with a barbecue sauce dipping cup.

• Meatball Pepperoni, filled with spicy meatballs, pepperoni, pizza sauce, mozzarella and classic Italian seasoning. Served with a pizza sauce dipping cup.

All the fillings cross-utilize topping and sauce ingredients from the pizza side of the menu and all are served with a cup of dipping sauce.

“The dipping cups add value and customers love to dip,” said Rodriguez. “Papa John’s is known for its garlic sauce, which goes out with every pizza, so the dipping experience is core to who we are.”

Portability a plus

With a rollout right before the pandemic closed down the country, the timing actually turned out to be favorable. The demand for handheld, portable items soared, as they adapted well to takeout and delivery, and the Papadias took off.

Lunch became a stronger daypart for the chain, but the flatbread sandwiches also drove transactions at other times of the day. “People were adding the Papadias on to pizza orders, especially for family meals. The kids might want pizza, but the parents wanted to try the piadinas,” said Rodriguez. “These were incremental orders, not cannibalization.”

The team is always experimenting with new iterations. A Buffalo Chicken Papadia soon joined the lineup, with a filling of grilled chicken, onions, three-cheese blend, buttermilk ranch sauce and Buffalo sauce; it’s served with ranch dipping sauce.

Last December, the Double Cheeseburger Papadia launched as an LTO. It’s stuffed with seasoned beef, dill pickles and cheese, then served with a zesty burger dipping sauce. Papa John’s brought in two additional SKUs for this limited-time offer; it did well, said Rodriguez, and although it’s now off the menu, there’s a chance it will return. A Buffalo Chicken Papadia is now on the menu as well, bringing the permanent piadina lineup to five.

In May, Papa John's added another flatbread option, and customers can now choose a Parmesan-crusted Papadia in addition to the original dough. “The Parmesan cheese bakes to a crisp on the outside of the crust and creates lots of umami,” said Rodriguez.

“We’re looking at how far we can push the Papadia envelope—what can translate well to this format—and how we can offer more customization.”

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