Mmm… Papa John’s Pizza. The chain’s motto — as you probably already know — is “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza.”
But these days, former CEO and company founder John Schnatter seems to have a serious issue with those ingredients. He certainly doesn’t think the chain is making “Better Pizza” in his absence. In fact, in November 2019, Schnatter told Kentucky news station WDRB:
“It’s not the same product. It just doesn’t taste as good.”
But let’s backtrack for a moment. As was widely reported at the time, the pizza king stepped down as CEO of Papa John’s in 2017 after making controversial remarks about the NFL. As The Washington Post reports,
“Schnatter sparked outrage by blaming sagging sales at Papa John’s a top NFL sponsor and advertiser on the league’s ‘poor leadership’ in response to the demonstrations during the national anthem.”
Then, in July 2018, Schnatter resigned from the company altogether after allegedly making racially insensitive remarks during a conference call. In fact, he reportedly used the N-word. According to Time magazine, Papa John’s stocks plunged following the alleged incident.
And now, Schnatter is back in the public spotlight and saying he suspects that the Papa John’s pizza recipe has surreptitiously been changed in his absence. Why does he think that?
Schnatter didn’t explain exactly how he went about analyzing those 40 pizzas nor did he explain why he decided to eat so much pizza in the first place. Whatever the case, he claims that:
“The way they’re making the pizza is just not fundamental to what makes a Papa John’s pizza.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Schnatter alleged,
“They stole the company, and now they’ve destroyed the company.”
Man… Who knew that a pizza company could cook up so much drama?
So let’s take the bait and talk about the taste of Papa John’s pizza which, we should note, has made John Schnatter a millionaire several times over. To our palettes, the pizza has one defining characteristic: Its unusually sweet flavor. Well, a supposed former Papa John’s manager made a rather startling admission on Reddit in 2017. They claimed the sauce has a sweet flavor for a very good reason:
“It’s full of sugar.”
According to Papa John’s website, sunflower oil, salt, garlic, spices, olive oil, citric acid, and yes sugar are all key ingredients in the sauce. The cheese is a part-skim mozzarella cheese blend made with modified food starch, whey protein concentrate, sodium citrate, and yes, more sugar in the form of sugarcane fiber. Meanwhile, the pizza dough uses unbleached enriched wheat flour, water, salt, yeast, soybean oil, and again sugar.
Actually, none of those ingredients are entirely out of the ordinary for pizza so if there’s really been a change to the recipe, there’s a good chance some of the spices in the sauce have been switched up. Unfortunately, Papa John’s doesn’t spell out exactly what spices they use in their list of ingredients. We imagine only higher-ups at the pizza chain are privy to this privileged information.
According to John Schnatter, everything from his removal from the company to the supposed new recipe is nothing but a big fat sham.
In the meantime, Rob Lynch, Papa John’s current CEO, basically told CNN in December 2019 that there’s no truth at all to Schnatter’s claims.
Elsewhere in the interview, Lynch says,
“I’ve never been a part of a system that takes more pride in what goes into the food that we’re making and how we’re making it. We feel great about the food that we’re putting out there. We haven’t made any changes to the way we make it or to what goes into our products.”
Beyond all his problems with the taste of the pizza, Schnatter also feels like Rob Lynch lacks sufficient experience in the pizza biz. In fact, he says,
“[He] doesn’t really know quality.”
Harsh words, to be sure. Meanwhile, Schnatter is the type of guy who will allegedly wolf down 40 pizzas in 30 days — all for the love of his former pizza chain. Perhaps that’s the kind of experience he feels Lynch lacks.
As we mentioned, Papa John’s has been struggling. In fact, only recently did the company see its first sales gain in over two years. Whether that has anything to do with the taste of the pizza, we don’t know. Opinions about the issue are certainly divided on social media. One dedicated pizza lover took to Twitter to write,
“As the eater of a single Papa John’s pizza in the last year I can assure you that the pizza still tastes exactly like it used to.”
Meanwhile, other pizza fanatics seem to think Schnatter is totally right in his assessment. One such person tweeted:
“Papa John’s pizza taste like crap ever since they wrongfully kicked Papa John out.”
So what do you believe? Honestly, we have no earthly idea… but at least this ugly fracas is serving up plenty of food for thought.
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