VANCOUVER, Wash. -- Papa Murphy's International has announced that it finished 2008 with $585 million in total U.S. systemwide sales, a nearly 17 percent increase from 2007. The company opened 102 locations during the year, bringing its restaurant count to 1,135 and making it the fifth-largest pizza chain in the country.
Papa Murphy's was voted "Best Pizza Chain in America" for the sixth consecutive year by consumers nationwide in the Restaurants and Institutions "Consumers' Choice in Chains" survey.
Papa Murphy's signed 10 new area development agreements in 2008, which will yield more than 100 new stores over the next five years. Thirty-nine stores are slated for three states new to the chain: Tennessee, Alabama and North Carolina.
Other notable events for the chain in 2008 include:
- Expanding its reduced-fat, reduced-calorie line of pizzas with the launch of the Chicken Bacon Artichoke Thin Crust deLITE
- Securing a spot on Inc.'s 5,000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the country. Papa Murphy's also took a place on the magazine's list of the Top 100 Food & Beverage Companies
- Launching "Feed Your Neighbor," a systemwide fundraising effort to benefit Feeding America (formerly named America's Second Harvest)
- Adding 40 new franchise entity groups throughout the country. Papa Murphy's ended the year with 455 franchise owners in 31 states and two Canadian provinces
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