Papa John’s Has its Best Month in Company History

It’s only natural that with more people stay inside due to coronavirus, that food delivery sales would go up. They did for Papa John’s pizza and last month was the best month ever for the company.

Papa John’s CEO Rob Lynch revealed this week that April was the best month in the pizza chain’s history. The company saw a nearly 27% increase in comparable sales in North America as the coronavirus pandemic continued to upend daily life.

Speaking on CNBC’s “Power Lunch,” Lynch said, “We feel very confident that we have the infrastructure in place to deliver long-term, sustainable growth.”

Lynch noted however that the Covid-19 outbreak isn’t the singular factor behind the sales growth.

“We said about 10% of that can be attributed to the tailwind of Covid and the new behaviors,” he said on “Power Lunch.” “So that means there is double-digit growth that is built in around other things.”

“We have 1 million new customers coming into the franchise. A lot of those coming are in through our loyalty program,” he said.

Papa John shares hit a new 52-week high of $78.06 on Wednesday after the company reported first quarter financial results.

For the first quarter, Papa John’s reported a 5.3% increase in comparable sales for North America during the period. The company saw revenues of $409.9 million, up from $398.4 million in the same quarter last year. Net income came in at $8.4 million, up from a loss of $1.7 million a year ago.

Lynch said on the earnings call, “January and February were particularly strong in North America, with North America comp sales up 7.6% and 5.4%, respectively, driven by successful new product and marketing innovation. We continue innovating on our signature fresh dough to create delicious, high-quality menu items that build on our premium brand, add minimal complexity to our stores, and our incremental versus cannibalistic of our core premium products.”

Papa John’s stock is up about 21% far this year.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Papa John’s Int’l, Inc. (NASDAQ: PZZA) and have not been compensated for this article.