Article

My bacon-stuffed crust is better than yours!

Pizza Hut and Cici's have rolled out bacon-stuffed crust pizzas.

May 10, 2016

By Shelly Whitehead, Editor, PizzaMarketplace.com

Pizza Hut and Cici's Pizza are apparently tapped into the same channel these days. When Pizza Hut rolled out its new bacon-stuffed crust pizza about three days ago, Cici's Pizza cried, "Wee-wee-wee all the way home!" You see, Cici's — according to a news release — was planning to roll out its own new bacon-stuffed crust pizza on May 23.

Cici’s is taking the high road however, sending out a congratulatory press release to Pizza Hut and the media. That release turned what could have been a coup by Pizza Hut — to bring a hot new product to the market first — into a little bit of a coup by Cici's.

Instead of getting down and dirty, Cici's used this great "bacon bash” to more or less drift off of Pizza Hut's drag by announcing the fact that Cici's will soon have not one, but three-stuffed crust pizzas, when it adds bacon and pretzel varieties to its original version at the end of the month.

 "We think it's great that we’re both rolling out bacon-stuffed crust pizzas," Cici’s Chief Marketing Officer Sarah McAloon, said before delivering this thinly veiled jab. "Pizza Hut's version is $12.99. But one of the things our guests tell us they love about Cici's is that they get to try new products and flavors for one low price, and at no risk ... all for just $5 and change."

And not to give them the last word, Pizza Hut also chimed in:

Let the crush of the crusts begin!