Domino's Pizza: chain to open 50 UK stores - but price hikes are coming as it shifts focus from delivery jobs

• Domino’s plans to open 50+ new stores in 2025, targeting rural areas with less competition
• Delivery orders grew by 2.4%, but the company is aiming for 50% of sales from customer collections
• Price hikes are expected in 2025 due to rising staff costs and national insurance increases

The largest pizza chain in the UK has said it plans to open more than 50 stores this year as it cheered a return to delivery growth in 2024.

But it also said there was “no doubt” the company will pizza raise prices in 2025 due to rising employment costs.

Domino’s saw its pre-tax profits rise by 8.4% to £107.3 million over the year. Sales across its stores also grew slightly, increasing by 0.7% due to better business performance.

In the last three months of the year, sales were up by 3%. Delivery orders grew by 2.4% over the year, while collection orders rose slightly by 0.5%.

The company opened 54 stores across the UK and Ireland in 2024 and said it plans to expand with over another 50 in 2025, with a target of operating more than 1,600 by 2028.

The pizzas sold from those new stores may be more expensive than ever though, with boss Andrew Rennie saying price increases for customers are inevitable as the cost of hiring staff continues to climb.

“There’s no doubt, I think later on in the year, there’ll be some need to do that,” said Rennie, who leads Domino’s UK and Ireland. He added that it’s difficult to predict how much prices will rise, citing uncertainty around government policies.

Domino’s employs at least 35,000 people but faces higher staffing costs from April, when the minimum wage and employer national insurance contributions (NICs) are set to increase.

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The company has already estimated an extra £3 million per year in NICs, while the minimum wage hike will raise employment costs for franchise operators by about 10%, adding up to “tens of millions” of pounds.

Rennie said: “It depends on what the consumer does. If the national living wage puts more money into consumers’ pockets, and they start spending more, we may not need to do much at all.

“The trouble is, every morning we wake up there’s something different being announced. We don’t know what the second half of the year holds.”

The company is also aiming for half of its pizza sales to come from customer collections rather than deliveries in the future, and is focusing more on collection this year as a way to offset rising costs.

Domino’s employs thousands of delivery drivers and riders, who delivered pizzas in an average of 24.5 minutes per order last year. But encouraging more customers to collect their orders would increase profits by removing delivery costs.

Currently, just over a third of Domino’s orders in the UK and Ireland are collected by customers, but Rennie hopes to follow the US model, where 55% of orders are picked up.

He didn’t specify when the company might reach its 50% target, saying that it “won’t happen overnight.”

A key part of the strategy involves opening more stores in rural areas, where there is often less competition. Rennie said that Domino’s strong national brand gives it a significant advantage in these locations compared to cities.

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