Papa John's International Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
August 7, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Our second quarter results exceeded expectations with global system-wide restaurant sales up 4%, North America comparable sales +1%, and international comparable sales +4%.
  • Positive Sentiment: We advanced product innovation by launching Cheddar Crust and Shaq-a-Roni pizzas in North America and a croissant pizza in Dubai, while oven calibration work is already boosting consistency and taste scores.
  • Positive Sentiment: In Q2 we invested approximately $9 million in incremental marketing and lowered loyalty redemption thresholds, adding 2.7 million new Papa Rewards members since last November and driving higher order frequency.
  • Positive Sentiment: Under a new partnership with Google Cloud we are beta testing an omnichannel app redesign and AI-driven personalization, which has led to higher app conversion rates and improved repeat purchase behavior.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Through the first five weeks of Q3, North America comps are down about 1% amid cautious consumers and softer carryout, though management expects acceleration in the third and fourth quarters.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Papa John's International Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Papa John's Second Quarter twenty twenty five Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

Operator

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Heather Hollander, SVP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Heather Hollander
SVP - Strategy, IR & FP&A at Papa John’s International

Good morning, and welcome to our second quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. Earlier this morning, we issued our second quarter earnings release, which can be found on our Investor Relations website at ir.papajohns.com under the News and Events tab or by contacting our Investor Relations department. Joining me on the call this morning are Todd Penegor, President and Chief Executive Officer and Ravi Thanawala, Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, International. Comments made during this call will include forward looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements.

Heather Hollander
SVP - Strategy, IR & FP&A at Papa John’s International

Forward looking statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements in our earnings release and the risk factors included in our SEC filings. In addition, please refer to our earnings release and our Investor Relations website for the required reconciliation of non GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call. Lastly, we ask that you please limit your questions to one question and one follow-up. And now I'll turn the call over to Todd.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Thank you, Heather, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be with you today to discuss our better than expected second quarter results and provide an update on the meaningful progress we are making in transforming the business. It's been just over a year since I joined the Papa John's team, and we've accomplished a lot in a short period of time. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of our team members and franchisees. The progress we've made is substantial.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

For example, we successfully returned the company to positive comparable sales and transaction growth in North America. With our barbell strategy and enhanced loyalty program in place, our brand strength has improved significantly, and strategic investments are enabling us to deliver great experiences for our customers. Taken together, I am confident we are on the right path towards profitable growth. Our goal is to be the best pizza makers in the business, and we are laser focused on continuing to execute our strategy to grow restaurant sales, generate sustainable profits through the system, and build long term value for all of our stakeholders. I stepped into this role knowing that Papa John's was a resilient, one of a kind brand with a commitment to quality ingredients, superior operations, and outstanding customer service.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

While the company had a great foundation in place, we needed to make additional changes to improve our operations and deliver better financial results, and we are. Over the last year, we've spent time in our restaurants, restaurant support centers, and QCCs across the company and have been meeting with our franchisees, team members, vendors, and community partners. Through these experiences, we learned a tremendous amount about the strengths and opportunities, and from there, quickly set our transformation in motion. One of my first priorities was building out the Papa John's leadership team. We supplemented our strong bench of existing talent with the addition of several key industry leaders to build a consumer focused, insights driven, experienced team with years of quick service restaurant, digital, and retail experience.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

With our team in place, we came together to establish a strong strategic plan built around five key priorities, focusing on our core product and premium innovation, amplifying our marketing message across consumer channels, investing in our technology infrastructure, differentiating our customer experience and partnering with and evolving our franchisee base. Our second quarter results, which exceeded our expectations, are evidence that our strategy is working. The North America business returned to positive comparable sales, ending the quarter up 1%. We also delivered sequential improvement across several key international markets, driving 4% comparable sales growth in Q2. Ravi will share additional details about our second quarter performance in a few minutes.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

But before he does, I'd like to review each of our five priorities and share more about the progress we've made against our plans to transform the Papa John's business. First, we are focused on improving our core product proposition and premium menu innovation throughout our restaurants. We're building a menu to not only capture the hearts and stomachs of customers, but also generate margins that improve profitability for our franchisees. Our consumer research consistently shows that exciting menu innovations bring in new customers. In the second quarter, we introduced Cheddar Crust made on our fresh, never frozen original dough in our North American restaurants.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Our Cheddar Crust innovation, combined with the addition of a fan favorite Shaq a Roni pizza, is a long term menu item plus continued strong value message with our popular six ninety nine Papa pairings delivered an increase in both the average number of pies per order and overall pizza sales versus last year. In q two, the number of pizzas ordered increased 6%, demonstrating both the power of our deep focus on our core product as well as value. Internationally, we made global QSR news with the launch of our expertly handcrafted croissant pizza in our Dubai restaurants. Our croissant pizza pairs the flaky texture of a buttery croissant with the bold flavors of Papa John's pizza for an elevated pizza experience. After one year in development and extensive consumer validation, croissant pizza is a prime example of how our talented culinary teams are blending global food culture with the high quality pizza craftsmanship that only Papa John's can deliver.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We look forward to expanding the launch of this exciting product to other international markets. We're also making progress in our oven calibration work, which allows us to advance our innovation while also delivering greater product consistency across our restaurants. Our ovens are the single most important piece of equipment in our restaurants. And by regulating bake time and temperatures, we're able to improve our ability to deliver a consistent pizza with each and every order. Our oven calibration were kicked off in the first quarter, and we're already seeing benefits with improvements in our product quality and taste scores.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

This work also opens a variety of new product innovations and layers across our menu, including new crusts and formats. Beyond oven calibration, we are making great progress rebuilding our innovation pipeline, leveraging deep consumer insights, world class suppliers, and our strong culinary team. In fact, our consumer insight work led us to develop an on trend shareable pizza format and a new lineup of dipping sauces. These are two of the innovations that we'll be launching over the second half of the year as we lean into abundant value and expand into new flavor profiles. Turning now to the progress we've made on our second priority, which is to amplify our marketing message.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We've been hard at work creating a marketing message that speaks to Papa John's differentiation among QSR pizza companies. At the June, we launched the second chapter of our popular meet the makers marketing campaign, leaning into the six simple ingredients of our fresh, never frozen original dough. Six simple ingredients is a strong point of differentiation with high importance among consumers. Our customers have told us that using simple, fresh ingredients is our biggest and most important differentiator, and we've doubled down on that message in our national marketing campaign. Consumers want high quality pizza with real ingredients, and our messaging strategy meets them where they are, emphasizing our points of differentiation and showcasing select core products at relevant price points.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

This will be part of our long term strategy to win customers and deliver compelling four wall economics. Ultimately, we think the world deserves better pizza, and we are here to deliver it. We continue to proactively invest in local marketing efforts at our company owned restaurants. We said it before, and we'll say it again. Pizza is a game played nationally, but one locally.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

In the second quarter, we invested approximately 9,000,000 in incremental marketing versus last year. While a portion of this spend was allocated to working media to support on a large scale, our improved value proposition, we also invested in our test and learn platform expansion to evaluate new promotions and CRM tactics. We are also leveraging analytics and a strong testing protocol to optimize the allocation of our marketing spend across channels, further improve our marketing ROI, and better meet customers where they are. As we continue to invest in marketing, we are continuously measuring and adjusting our mix towards the most efficient and effective use cases to drive long term growth supported by data driven insights. Overall, our targeted approach to amplify our marketing is paying off as we've seen continued improvement in our brand health, including a significant increase in consumer consideration following the launch of our meet the makers campaign.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We've also grown our share of voice on social channels and launched compelling activations, including Genie dirty soda and stress dough balls, which are resonating particularly well with Gen Z. We're pleased to see that our work to strengthen and amplify our creative, advance our social presence, and optimize mix is increasing the impact of our marketing efforts. Our third strategic priority is investing in our technology infrastructure. Under Kevin Viscone's leadership, we are implementing our technology road map with the goal of reestablishing Papa John's as a best in class technology leader in QSR. By better utilizing data and leveraging AI, we believe we can create a more seamless experience across our digital assets and own channels and better connect with customers.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

This work is especially powerful because it builds on the advancements we're making in marketing by inviting customers into the brand and then layering in hyper personalization to drive additional engagement and retention. We're already seeing the benefits from this work with substantial engagement gains in our CRM platform, higher app conversion, and improving repeat purchase rates amongst our digital users. In April, we announced our partnership with Google Cloud aimed at transforming our customer experience from click to crust while driving operational efficiency in our restaurants. We are currently in the beta testing phase for new omnichannel experiences, including the planned introduction of an all new customer facing app that is designed to improve navigation, reduce clicks to purchase, and improve order tracking and targeted communication. Leveraging the power of AI, we plan to enhance the ordering experience, better anticipate our customers' needs, generate proactive recommendations, and share relevant offers and messaging based on learned customer preferences.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We are also working to utilize voice AI solutions to drive customer orders and deliver operational efficiency. We look forward to updating you on this and many other exciting advancements. Our partnership with Google Cloud is only one of the mechanisms that we're employing to make the customer ordering journey more personalized, more consistent, and more impactful. With approximately 70% of our system sales generated by our own digital channels, we believe that building a more robust technology infrastructure will lead to higher revenue, improved operational effectiveness, and better returns on our marketing investments. Our fourth priority, differentiating our customer experience across all of our channels underpins each of our strategic pillars.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Starting with our loyalty program, we continue to benefit from the lowering of our redemption threshold late last year and allowing members to unlock Papa Do faster. Though this enhancement decreased our overall order ticket by approximately a 100 basis points in the quarter, the benefits far outweigh the ticket impact. As a result of this change, we are acquiring new Papa Rewards members. More members are redeeming Papa Dough, and our loyalty customers are returning for their next order more quickly. All in, we have added approximately 2,700,000 new loyalty accounts to our PopUp Rewards program since the November relaunch.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

The enhanced loyalty platform has proven to be a great customer acquisition tool for our brand while also driving higher order frequency among all customer cohorts. As we look ahead, we will continue to pursue opportunities to build on this progress and enhance our Popper Rewards programs to drive additional activation and recruit more new customers to our loyalty program. As a consumer driven and insights led brand, it is critical that we serve our customers on their channel of choice. That means continuing to partner with third party aggregators. Pizza as a category is underrepresented on aggregator platforms, and we see many opportunities for category growth as well as growth for Papa John's specifically.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We were a first mover among QSR pizza companies in the aggregator ecosystem, having first partnered with third party delivery providers in 2019. We command a leading position in the category in terms of sales per store, and this has not changed with the entrance of competitors onto the platforms. Within the aggregator marketplace, we believe that the most successful players will be those who best serve the customers and provide the highest quality product. Papa John's with our premium positioning, high quality simple ingredients and great value has a strong competitive advantage. We are encouraged by the strength we're seeing within the aggregator channel as overall sales and orders continue to grow high teens in the second quarter versus the prior year.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

As we mentioned on our last earnings call, our Mystery Shop study revealed that our carryout and digital platforms were top in class among QSR pizza restaurants. It also showed us that we need to improve our delivery experience, and we are taking action to do just that. For example, we are currently rolling out a system wide delivery tracking service that will provide better driver tracking for our customers so they will know exactly when their hot, made to order pizza will arrive at their doorstep. Currently, approximately 60% of our restaurants offer our updated delivery tracking service, and we expect to substantially complete this rollout to all North American restaurants by the 2026. Delivery is a very important component of our business, and we are committed to consistently providing a great delivery experience.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Finally, our operations team have been hard at work improving execution and delivering a more consistent experience in our restaurants. Through restaurant visits and evaluations, coaching, and tools to improve product quality, we are improving our customer satisfaction scores in line with our goal to be the best pizza makers in the business. Our fifth strategic priority is partnering with and evolving our franchisee base to drive profitable growth through market share gains, accelerating restaurant development in our most impactful markets, and sustainably improving our restaurant economic model. After the quarter closed, we signed an agreement for the sale of our ownership stake in a joint venture that operates 85 restaurants. We expect the transaction to close by the fourth quarter of this year, and we plan to use proceeds to fund investments in our strategic initiatives as well as pay down debt.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We also continue to evaluate refranchising opportunities across our portfolio of company owned restaurants in North America. We believe that refranchising with strategy forward, well capitalized, and growing franchisees strengthens the long term health of the Papa John's system and unlocks future growth opportunities. Finally, we are working to improve the four wall economics at all Papa John's restaurants, and we have completed an extensive review of our North American supply chain to reduce overall cost to serve. We have identified an opportunity to achieve more than $50,000,000 in total cost savings with approximately 40% expected to be realized in 2026. Through a series of initiatives, we will optimize our supply chain and enhance productivity while maintaining the same high quality, better ingredients in our restaurants.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Overall, we plan to deliver margin improvement of at least one percentage point to our average North American restaurant once the program is fully ramped by 2028. As I reflect on my first year as Papa John's CEO, I am highly encouraged by the early progress we've made against our strategic priorities. We're attracting new customers to the brand while driving incremental purchases from existing customers. We're substantially improved the value proposition for Papa John's while also improving our quality perception. We're rebuilding the innovation pipeline.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We're driving growth and higher utilization amongst our Papa rewards members. We've developed marketing messages that are resonating with our most important customers. We've established a plan to deliver significant cost savings to our franchisees without compromising the customer experience, and we've implemented our technology road map with the goal of reestablishing Papa John's as a best in class technology leader in QSR. Importantly, we've returned the brand to top line growth while making strategic investments in innovation, marketing, and technology to drive profitable growth in the future. We made a great deal of progress in the last year, but our work is just getting started.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We recognize a significant opportunity ahead and are moving forward with enthusiasm and determination as we implement our plans and build on the foundation we've established. We are in a solid position to deliver sustainable value creation to all stakeholders as we move into the 2025 and beyond. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Ravi to discuss our second quarter financial results in greater detail. Ravi?

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Thank you, Todd, and good morning, everyone. I will begin my comments with an overview of our second quarter results, followed by our financial outlook. Please note that all comparisons and growth rates referenced today are compared to the prior year period, unless otherwise noted. We delivered solid performance in the second quarter, generating top and bottom line results that exceeded our expectations. In the second quarter, global system wide restaurant sales were $1,260,000,000 up 4% in constant currency.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

As Todd noted, North America comparable sales increased 1% in the second quarter and outperformed our expectations. Second quarter transaction comps in North America grew 1% and improved two twenty basis points sequentially as we further monetized our strategic investments and transaction driving initiatives. Sales and transaction growth are a key focus areas for us given the long term benefits for four wall profitability and the high variable profitability of our transactions. Second quarter ticket comps decreased less than a half a percentage point, driven by the strategic changes to our loyalty program in the 2024, as well as product mix shift as we again saw growth in the sales of medium pizzas versus other sizes in the quarter. These pressures were partially offset by the positive impact of an increased number of pizzas sold per order.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

International comparable sales increased 4%. We're pleased with the results of our international transformation initiatives, which are yielding near term growth while also setting the stage for long term value creation. Total revenues for the second quarter were $529,000,000 an increase of 4%, primarily driven by higher commissary revenues and partially offset by lower revenues at our company owned restaurants, mostly related to UK refranchising activity and market optimization efforts. Commissary revenues increased $20,000,000 driven by higher volume and pricing in the quarter. This increase was partially offset by a $6,000,000 decrease in company owned restaurant revenues driven by an $8,000,000 decline in our international company owned restaurants, reflecting the net impact of closing and refranchising 105 formerly company owned restaurants in The UK, partially offset by a $3,000,000 increase at our domestic company owned restaurants driven by comparable sales growth as a result of higher average ticket slightly offset by the refranchising of 15 restaurants in the prior year.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

While consolidated adjusted EBITDA declined modestly to approximately $53,000,000 this reflects investments to fuel stronger customer engagement and long term brand equity. Second quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA performance was impacted by incremental loyalty and marketing investments of approximately $9,000,000 as we continue to build momentum with our most valuable customers and position the brand for long term growth, anticipated elevated g and a related to $3,700,000 of higher incentive compensation under our management incentive plan and higher food and labor costs at our company owned restaurants. These higher expenses were partially offset by revenue growth. Our second quarter domestic company owned restaurant segment EBITDA margins declined approximately two twenty basis points, primarily driven by a decrease of approximately two ten basis points from labor inflation, aggregator fees, and advertising in the quarter approximately 140 basis points of pressure from higher food costs, particularly around cheese and proteins, and 60 basis points of decline driven by general expenses and technology fees. These declines were partially offset by a 190 basis points improvement from average ticket growth.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

We accomplished this level of check growth even as we continue to support our value offerings across the barbell. As we move forward, our focus is driving long term gains in transaction share and winning in customer consideration. We will balance restaurant level margins against strategic investments in our brand that we believe will yield stronger four wall economics over the long term. North America commissary segment adjusted EBITDA margins were 7.3% in the second quarter, an improvement of 130 basis points reflecting higher volumes and pricing. Turning to our balance sheet.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

At the end of the quarter, our total available liquidity was approximately $500,000,000 in cash and borrowings available under our credit facilities, and our gross leverage ratio was 3.4 times. Turning now to cash flows. For the first six months of 2025, net cash provided by operating activities was approximately $67,000,000. Free cash flow was $37,000,000, an increase of $24,000,000, primarily reflecting the timing of cash payments for the national marketing fund and improved working capital. Now turning to our outlook.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

We continue to make meaningful progress on our strategic priorities. And with that in mind, we are raising the range for international comparable sales guidance while reiterating the remainder of our 2025 annual guidance. For 2025, we continue to expect system wide sales to increase between 25%. From a comparable sales perspective, we still anticipate that North America comparable sales will be flat to up 2% in 2025. Through the first five weeks of the third quarter, North America comparable sales are down approximately one percent as we've seen a more cautious consumer and softer carryout business.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Given our plans to leverage our barbell strategy with strong value messaging and a compelling full margin product, we expect that North America comparable sales will accelerate through the remainder of the third quarter. We anticipate further acceleration in the fourth quarter as we build momentum and layer in new product innovation. Internationally, we are pleased with the continued improvement that we are seeing across our restaurants. Given recent trends and the operational strength in our priority markets, we are raising our twenty twenty five international comparable sales growth outlook to a range of 2% to 4%. As Todd shared, we have entered into an agreement to sell our ownership stake in a joint venture that operates 85 restaurants in The US.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

We anticipate closing the transaction in the fourth quarter, which we expect will reduce fourth quarter consolidated revenue by approximately $15,000,000 including the impact of eliminations. On an annualized basis, this transaction is expected to reduce consolidated revenue by approximately $60,000,000 including the impact of eliminations. The transaction is expected to have a negligible impact on net income. We have contemplated these impacts in our financial guidance. For 2025, we continue to expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA to be between 200,000,000 and $220,000,000 As a reminder, our definition of adjusted EBITDA excludes stock based compensation, interest expense, taxes, depreciation and amortization, as well as exclusions for certain onetime items.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Our definition adjusted G and A expense excludes the same onetime items as adjusted EBITDA, but does not exclude stock based compensation. We continue to expect stock based compensation to be approximately $4,000,000 to $5,000,000 per quarter. I'd like to share several timing related nuances for our quarterly adjusted G and A spend. Given the success of our marketing and loyalty investments we have seen to date, we expect to invest $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 of incremental marketing spend in Q3 compared to the same period last year. We also expect Q3 and Q4 adjusted G and A dollars to be in line with Q1 twenty twenty five levels.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

2025 and 2026 are investment periods for Papa John's as we execute our plans to grow restaurant sales, improve four wall restaurant profitability and accelerate the impact of the Papa John's brand globally. For 2025, nonoperating expense items, we expect our G and A expense to be at the higher end of our 70,000,000 to $75,000,000 range, our net interest expense to be between 40,000,000 and $45,000,000 and our capital expenditures to be between $75,000,000 and $85,000,000 This CapEx range is inclusive of an estimated $8,000,000 to $13,000,000 of spend to rebuild facilities following tornado damage at our Texas QC Center and Louisville Restaurant Support Center and QC Center. We also continue to expect our effective tax rate to be in the range of 28% to 32%. Finally, we expect diluted shares outstanding of approximately 33,000,000 in the second half of the year. Turning to restaurant development.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

We ended the 2025 with 5,989 restaurants globally. In North America, we opened 19 new restaurants and closed 18, bringing our total North America restaurant count to 3,517. Given the strategic decisions we're making to improve the long term health of our restaurant system, we anticipate North America restaurant closures will be at the higher end of our historical average of approximately 1.5 to 2% of the North America system. It's worth noting that half of the forecasted restaurant closures are nontraditional or small town restaurants that carry a blended average sales volume, which is less than half of our system average. We continue to expect to open between 85 and a 115 gross new restaurants in North America in 2025, and over 95% of remaining projected openings are currently in construction, design, or later stages.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Internationally, our transformation is well underway and is driving positive results across our most impactful markets. In The UK, a market that has undergone significant transformation since 2023, Operational improvements has led to improved brand health scores. New marketing campaigns have acquired new customers, and growth in aggregators has contributed to sales increases. Within Middle East and Africa, we are gaining momentum in key markets and plan to build on the trend with our croissant pizza in the second half of the year. In our international markets, we opened 26 new restaurants in the second quarter and closed 57, bringing our international restaurant count to 2,472.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Consistent with our international market optimization strategy, we closed 41 underperforming restaurants in China in the second quarter. These closures had a minimal impact on system wide sales, and we expect they will strengthen the Chinese market over the long term. We are taking a disciplined approach and working closely with our master franchisee to optimize the market and ensure that the Papa John's brand is well positioned for long term profitable growth. For 2025, we still expect to open a 180 to 200 gross new restaurants across our international markets. Going forward, we anticipate international closures will be between 45% of our international system outside of any strategic market closures to improve marketplace health.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

For 2025, we expect to be at the higher end of this closure range inclusive of the strategic closures I described. In closing, we are pleased to have delivered second quarter results above our expectations. We are focused on executing our strategy that is delivering results and positioning Papa John's for profitable growth and value creation for all stakeholders. With that, I'll turn it back to Todd for some closing thoughts.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Thank you, Robbie. To summarize, customers want high quality pizza with real ingredients, and we will lean into our differentiation to win consumers and deliver profitable growth. Our work to transform the business by executing on five strategic priorities is resulting in tangible positive results across the organization, and we are excited about the substantial upside ahead. Now we'd like to open the call up for any questions you may have.

Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Jim Salera from Stephens.

Tyler Prause
Senior Research Associate at Stephens Inc

Hi, this is Tyler Perales on for Jim. Thanks for taking our questions. Given the recent decision to resume some regional marketing efforts, could you share any insights into frequency trends you've observed, particularly in the context of the sequentially accelerating comps in North America?

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah, Tyler. I you know, as we've started to think about spending our incremental marketing dollars and putting some money to work to not only drive the business nationally, but to really make sure we got the appropriate support locally, we use some of our incremental dollars to do some heavy up testing to test and learn and partner with some franchisees in key strategic markets to see what kind of returns we could get.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

But it's still the early innings of all of that. So more to come on how we're actually gonna continue to get focused at the local level moving forward as we really try to get focused on some of our our most impactful markets where we know where we could spend some dollars, get the co ops back up and running to really compete even stronger in partnership with with our franchise community working as a unit at the co op level to really complement our national messaging. So early, early, lots of learnings, a lot more to come, and we're gonna take our franchise community on that journey moving forward.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Stelzik from BMO Capital Markets.

Andrew Strelzik
Andrew Strelzik
Restaurant Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. You mentioned 2Q exceeding your expectations. North America comps are a little ahead of what it seems like you had expected. Where do you think you're getting more traction than you anticipated across those initiatives?

Andrew Strelzik
Andrew Strelzik
Restaurant Analyst at BMO Capital Markets

And then just kind of as a follow-up, I know it's only one month, I don't want to make too much of that. But what gives you confidence in the reacceleration over the balance of the year based on what's in your pipeline? Thanks.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Andrew. You know, very proud of the work the team has done to, you know, get North America growing again at plus 1% on same restaurant sales comps really on the heels of, you know, transaction growth being up 1%. So we are bringing in more customers more often. I think it's a combination of everything that we have out there, return to a more traditional barbell, had some innovation for the first time in a while, which helped on the high end of the barbell with the cheddar crust pizza, putting Shaq a Roni on as a, you know, more permanent long term item has been a positive.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

But, you know, the foundational work that we've done over the last nine months to really make sure we have the tools at our disposal to lean into CRM, to make sure we can better connect to our consumer, to leverage our loyalty program, which is driving a lot of frequency, and, you know, we continue to gain members on that front. We're seeing some really nice growth in our our loyalty program. And as we look forward, the opportunity is to really leverage innovation a little bit more to recruit customers back into our brand. We know if we can bring some lapsed in, we can bring some new in, we can get them converted into our loyalty program, and we can grow and drive some nice momentum in our business moving forward. Yes, we're in the early innings of third quarter.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

More cautious consumer, we're watching. Our carryout business probably started a little bit softer than we had hoped for at the beginning of the quarter, but we can quickly check and adjust on that front. We're lapping over at the beginning of the quarter some heavier promotional activity that supported some of our rhythm breakers, Papadias, Papa Bites last year. But our core pizza business, you know, which was up 6% in the second quarter, continues to grow nicely into the third quarter. So we're really feeling good about the the core business.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

And we just launched some more innovation. We've got garlic five cheese at an $11.99 price point just launched. Coming up, we've got an on trend shareable pizza format with a new lineup of dipping sauces. And we got in test what we're calling the grand papa, which is our biggest pizza ever, and and we're excited about that one too. So we've got a lot at our disposal to continue compete really well in the back half of the year, and you will see sequential improvement in our business throughout the back half to deliver on our commitment in North America flat to plus two.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

And then importantly, we still have a lot of momentum on international. Right? We ended up calling up the year on on international. It was flat to two to, you know, two to four, and and the momentum that we saw in the second quarter continues into the third quarter.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Sara Senatore from Bank of America.

Sara Senatore
Sara Senatore
Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America

Thank you. I guess a question and then maybe just a clarification on an earlier comment, if you if I could. The you mentioned that the four wall economics here is something that you're you're working to improve. You talked about some of the benefit perhaps from the supply chain optimization. I guess as I as I think about this, you know, I think one of the things that you you disclosed at the, Investor Day was that, you know, the sort of four wall EBITDA margin was in that 12% range for franchisees, but it was it was a subset of franchisees.

Sara Senatore
Sara Senatore
Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America

And I guess as you look more broadly, are you seeing that that's representative? And if so, you know, is that sufficient to kind of catalyze further refranchising or unit growth? You know? Or do you need this, you know, 100 basis points plus to really increase the appeal? So that was the question.

Sara Senatore
Sara Senatore
Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America

Just a clarification was on, you said carryout was a little bit softer. Am I right in thinking that that tends to be a more economically sensitive consumer? I'm just trying to sort of decouple what might be company specific versus continued pressure on that either lower income or economically stressed consumer. Thank you.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yes, sir. I'll start on carryout. And the comment on carryout just being a little softer than anticipated was the start of the third quarter. I mean, carryout business was strong in the second quarter. And I think it's really around what messaging do we have nationally in play for our brand, what do we have at the local to really make sure we're competing and connecting to the consumers.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

So it's something in our control and and we can check and adjust quickly. You know, on the margin front, I'll have Ravi talk a little bit more about it. But, we've made some nice sequential improvement on our margins from the first quarter into the second quarter. We've still seen significant commodity inflation in the first half of the year. It turns deflationary in the back half of the year, which will certainly be a help.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

You know, as we continue to bring in more customers more often, the leverage that we see both at the restaurant level and and through our supply chain network certainly helps the the the margins for the company and the and the franchise community. But we know we got work to continue to do to strengthen those margins, and that's why we're embarking and now executing a supply chain optimization project that can realize significant savings over time. So I will return to a more of a traditional barbell strategy with a little more innovation on the top end to complement the bottom end. So lots of work to make that all come to life. So, Ravi, any other thoughts as you think about Sarah's question?

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Yeah. So first, like, as we talked about in in December, we think a core part of our recipe to continue to accelerate four wall margins is about taking advantage of the slack capacity in our our restaurants. We think that there are there's more transaction share left for us to go get, and we wanna go win consumers. Specific to, like, what we're seeing in the franchisee base, what what I'd say is, like, the franchisees who have been driving a transaction orientation have performed very well, and continue to deliver strong profitability. The franchisees where there's been a little bit more price taking and a little bit less focus on transactions, they're probably at a slightly different spot.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

But when I back way up and look at, like, 2020 to 2024 time period, the Papa John's system on an average restaurant level performed pretty well from a profitability standpoint. And our our corporate restaurants, if you just look at the average corporate restaurant from 2020 to 2024, we made over $820,000 in four wall EBITDA per average restaurant. So right now, investing some profitability back into winning transactions, into winning the hearts and minds of consumers, we think pay pays a lot of dividends. And where we're really focused in, with our franchisees and connected at the hip is we think it's more important than ever that we're focusing on quality and operational execution. We're continuing to to strike the right balance between full margin innovation product coming to life in our restaurants and driving value messaging.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

And we're really happy that we've been on this rhythm of value messaging for well over a year now. And and third, like, we know that more than 45% of our business is is carryout, and we wanna continue to make sure that we're getting great, great experiences for our customers when they walk into our restaurants.

Sara Senatore
Sara Senatore
Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America

Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Slagle from Jefferies.

Alexander Slagle
Alexander Slagle
Equity Analyst at Jefferies

Hey, thanks, and congrats on the momentum and progress. A question on carryout is you evaluate the performance across your system. Are there any learnings from the top performing markets, tops that you can take to the rest of the system and help you drive the carryout growth in some of those markets where it's been lagging?

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah. I think there's a couple of things. You know, first and foremost, you know, having a national message around carryout certainly helps because that creates a nice halo for the brand to get consumers thinking about showing up at our restaurants more often for carryout. But, you know, you really gotta work hard with with the the co ops and the local team to make sure there's compelling carryout offers that really resonate in the communities that they serve. And it's more than just the offer.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

It's making sure that you got friendly service when that customer shows up at the restaurant. It's out there really hustling to make sure you know when all those key events are happening in your trade areas and in your in your communities to make sure you're working hard to connect to those individuals to make sure that they understand that Papa John's is there for them at a compelling value, whether that's price or whether that's the quality of the food that we deliver. And there's a lot of good lessons to make sure that we continue to communicate to the franchise community. If you're out there hustling, you're out there working, you're out there connect connecting to your community, you can drive a lot of growth. And we're seeing pockets of that across the the organization and and across the company.

Alexander Slagle
Alexander Slagle
Equity Analyst at Jefferies

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Chris O'Cull from Stifel.

Chris O’Cull
MD - Restaurants, Franchised Businesses at Stifel Institutional

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Todd, the incremental investment in marketing represents a pretty meaningful increase in annual spend. How are you thinking about lapping that investment next year? And then can you elaborate on the changes you expect to make to the supply chain to reduce cost?

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yes. So on the incremental marketing investments, we are spending a fair bit to really test, learn and support system through this year. I mean, $7,000,000 in the first quarter, another 9 in the second quarter, up to $25,000,000 on a full year. But, you know, there has been a lot of foundational work to really set up our plans to be more effective and efficient in in 2026. And I think with the learnings, we can figure out how we allocate, you know, existing national marketing fund dollars versus company dollars to really drive the growth that we need because I know we're gonna be more effective with each dollar that we're spending.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We also have leaned in to really test some things to make sure we could bring the franchise community along for the journey. So we did a little heavy up marketing around the BOGOs. It wasn't just about driving a BOGO proposition at the point in time we did. It's really to try to learn what's the customer behavior beyond the BOGO, and is there a really good lifetime value in in executing, you know, those type of promotions, and those are learnings we can take into building our plans for next year. We use some dollars on the nonworking side to really support some work to accelerate our CRM, and and those would be foundational elements that keep building our business into the future.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We've leaned in on on driving some social and search demand, which again are some good foundational elements to give us some learnings as we get into next year. So it's been a combination of working, nonworking. I'm sure it's supporting the business where we need to. We did some heavy up in some local markets to help inform what our local strategy should be moving forward, but we learned a lot. And I know we'll be more effective and efficient with all the dollars, and we can really decide as we go into '26 how much of that needs to come out of incremental dollars from the company side versus what can we just leverage with all of these learnings to be more effective and efficient with the NMF funds that we have.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

So more to come on that. You know, the supply chain side, I really credit to our team for really taking a step back and making sure that we weren't just a cost plus model, that we're really trying to drive productivity day in and day out across the supply chain network. We talk about savings of at least 50,000,000, so we're going to work hard to surpass that. You know, over a point of margin impact by the time this is all instituted in in '28, you know, there's probably a little bit of upside to that. But importantly, we're getting after it fast.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Right? 40% of those savings gonna be realized by '26. We're not gonna sacrifice any of the quality of our our product. But we do see optimization opportunities to drive better fixed cost utilization across the network, and we're gonna make some moves to to bring that to life. We do think there are some opportunities that we can capture in our transportation logistics.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

So how do we deliver our white glove service to the back of the restaurants? And we're working through that. And we know there's some procurement savings with some significant contracts that are up for renewals. We did some should cost modeling and we're working through that to make sure we can realize all those savings. So a lot going on across almost every element of the functions within the organization, but we got a great team that's really focused on executing against these initiatives to really bring a strong restaurant economic model to life for the system.

Chris O’Cull
MD - Restaurants, Franchised Businesses at Stifel Institutional

Great. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Mullen from Piper Sandler.

Brian Mullan
Brian Mullan
Director & Senior Research Analyst - Restaurant & Food Distribution at Piper Sandler Companies

Thank you. I just wanna ask on the refranchising transaction. Maybe just give a little background how that came together. Remind us where those restaurants are. And then as the buyer, are you just selling that to your existing partner in the joint venture, or is there, you know, a third party coming in?

Brian Mullan
Brian Mullan
Director & Senior Research Analyst - Restaurant & Food Distribution at Piper Sandler Companies

And then just related to all that, are you still thinking about additional transactions? And would you think any deals would have a development agreement attached? Is that an important factor for you all as you go through this process?

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah. Let me start with the broader strategy. You know, we've said this before. We do think refranchising is is core to our strategy over time. You know, we operate, you know, before this transaction that we're talking about about 540 company restaurants.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We do think there's some opportunities outside of kind of our our core markets, and I really think about core from Indianapolis down to Atlanta and that whole corridor where we know we've got a lot of opportunities for growth. But we're gonna have to look at at the other markets to see if there are other good partners that, you know, should be scaled up as great brand partners to drive the brand. Is it an opportunity to bring some fresh blood in? And as we do any of these transactions, we will have development commitments attached to them, and that'll be a big part of of the growth. And we'll also make sure that we do appropriate reimaging as we bring, you know, those new agreements to life with some of the refranchising.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

So it'll be part of our transformation journey as we move forward. You know, we did sell 15 restaurants last year And, you know, the 85 restaurants we're talking about today in the JV, you know, we expect that transaction, as we said in the prepared remarks, to close by the fourth quarter. But I'll turn it over to Ravi to talk some specifics on that transaction.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Yeah. So the the transaction is happening in the Mid Atlantic area. It's a market that we have meaningful market share in today, and we think that there's more to get. What we're transacting with an existing franchisee within the system, it's it's not our current JV partner, but it's it's a franchisee partner who's well capitalized, that's focused on the long term, who's investing in the business, and has a a great transaction driving mindset, which actually very similar to to to the deal we did in Wisconsin a a year ago. And so Todd's point, we we we saw this as a great opportunity to continue to grow a a great strategic franchisee and probably most importantly, continue to drive market share gains in an important market for us.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Peter Saleh from BTIG.

Peter Saleh
MD - Restaurants at BTIG

Hey. Great. Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on the progress you guys are making. I did want to ask about, know, Todd, I think you mentioned you're seeing a meaningful increase in app conversions. Could you just comment a little bit on on really, maybe give us a little bit more detail on really what you're seeing there?

Peter Saleh
MD - Restaurants at BTIG

And in the same vein, if you can comment on I I know you saw a pretty nice increase in, rewards memberships, 2,700,000.0 since the change in November. Can you just talk about the behavior of those rewards members? Are those rewards members also coming in more frequently? Or are they do they continue to spend more? Anything you can share on that front would be helpful. Thank you.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah. I'll start on the the rewards program, loyalty program. I'll let Ravi talk a little bit about app conversion. But, you know, since we enhanced our Papa rewards program in November 2024, you know, it's been nice to see that we've added 2,700,000 new accounts. We're up to 38,800,000 total loyalty members there or thereabout.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We are seeing an increase in customer engagement. We are seeing faster repeat purchases, and customer accounts are up across almost every frequency cohort year over year since the change was made. So really feeling good about how we're driving customer counts in in the loyalty program, seeing the the growth on customer counts increase over the last three months, up almost four and a half percent, up 1% versus the prior twelve months. So it's it has really been working the way we would expect it to work. We're seeing more folks redeem cash.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We're acquiring more customers, and those customers are ordering more frequently. It's everything you would want from a of a loyalty program and we know there's great lifetime value for that customers. You know, as you look at where are we really winning, we're seeing more light and medium customers order in the last three months as well as a small increase in in loyalty frequency, which is important. We'll continue to enhance it to drive that. And then our super frequent loyalty customers, which is our highest value segment that placed an order over the last twelve months, it turned positive for the first time during q two in a long time.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

So it's really hitting on all cylinders. And and the opportunities we said earlier is how do we go drive some innovation? How do we recruit new customers into the brand? How do we bring those laps back, and then quickly move them over into the loyalty program so we can connect with them and and really drive a a more personalized experience with great value and a great experience for them. And that's probably a good lead on to how the app works and and and the conversion and the work that's been underway.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Yeah. So last summer, we did some work on the app experience, and we really haven't stopped on improving that experience as a whole. We saw over the trailing four quarters a couple 100 basis points of conversion upside in the app, and that was really about us starting to to connect all the pieces of our strategy together. We moved loyalty, front, center in terms of the homepage experience. We updated imagery and and and how you you scroll through the experience, and we saw some really meaningful gains.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

And as we talked about in our prepared remarks, we're beta testing some new omnichannel experiences as well. So we don't feel like we're anywhere near done in terms of driving consumer accounts and driving engagement through our our app experience. And as we, like, zoom a little bit further out, like, the work that's happening between our marketing and our technology teams, it's it's really picked up pace. We are getting much more personalized, and personalized means everything from, like, deeper segmentation of offers at a priority market level. It means speed of analytics and speed at which we are checking and adjusting in in the business.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

And we see a lot of potential to lean further into to AI in in in the the coming months and years, and we see really clear opportunities from an omnichannel experience standpoint, thinking about how we could make voice a bigger component of what we do, you know, continue to lean deeper into getting the right messaging in front of the right consumers faster. So we're we're excited in terms of what's in front of us from a a technology and most importantly, a consumer experience standpoint.

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Eric Gonzalez from KeyBanc.

Eric Gonzalez
Eric Gonzalez
VP & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hi, thanks. Good morning.

Eric Gonzalez
Eric Gonzalez
VP & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Just wanted to ask about innovation. Do you think you have the right innovation pipeline that you want in place? And or do you have to do a bit more testing? And when do you see the brand having a regular cadence of innovation, if that's the goal? And then, just selfishly, I'm wondering when we might see the croissant pizza in The US.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Well, on the croissant pizza in The US, we got a lot of opportunity to continue to roll that across international. And we've done a lot of testing and learning in in The US and love to make sure that's the right offering for The US consumer. But I would never say never on on croissant, so we'll we'll leave it at that. You know, on the innovation pipeline, it was relatively bare to to be honest when I got here. And, you know, we really focused on being the best pace pizza makers in the business and and really driving our core pizza business over the last year.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

And we've seen the results of that with nice sequential improvement on on pizza sales, you know, plus 4% in q one, plus 6% in in q two. And we do know we have some of our rhythm breakers that, you know, have become less of a p mix in our business around Papadias and and and Papa Bites. But, you know, we're starting to return to a good cadence of of some news. You know, the the $11.99 garlic five cheese that it's ours is is a nice proposition. You know, the shareable, dippable pizza that will be coming later this year, I think, is fits really well with our brand and the occasion the consumer is looking for.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

And the grand papa that's in test right now, you know, our largest pizza ever, I think, really continues to drive our business. And we'll start to see that accelerate as we go into 2026. You know, we recently partnered with a lot of our suppliers and and really looked at some of the adjacent pizza category business. I mean, we still got a lot of opportunity to innovate on on crust forms and on core, but there are some opportunities to continue to, you know, expand our reach and and and the work we've done, you know, to optimize our oven calibration, to take our bake temps down, to slow their ovens down a little bit, really opens up some of these other adjacent categories. So we'll make sure we've got a good mix of core and and adjacencies as we move into '26, but that's when you really see us start to hit our stride on on on innovation to complement all the other good work that we're doing along the way.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

And with every step of the way, we're gonna continue to stay focused on, you know, our our our message around pizza craftsmanship and six simple ingredients and fresh, never frozen, original dough. And, you know, it is a powerful message when you think about those six simple ingredients, slower water, sugar, oil, salt, yeast. That is so on trend with where the consumer's going. We can innovate around some of that simplicity and really continue to deliver better quality product for the consumer. Because as we said in the prepared remarks, the world deserves better pizza, and we're here committed to deliver on that.

Eric Gonzalez
Eric Gonzalez
VP & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Sounds like you spent some time in the kitchen, Todd. If I if can if

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

you see me, gotta double my workout regimen. That's for sure.

Eric Gonzalez
Eric Gonzalez
VP & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

If I if I can ask a question about maybe a follow-up on on the first five weeks of the quarter. Again, I don't wanna make too much about it, but it did seem like your largest competitor was on there with some pretty heavy discounting. So I'm wondering if that was a big factor and whether there were also any changes in the advertising pressure that you had on during July versus what you did in the latter two months of the first quarter.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah. I think, you know, the beautiful thing about our business is we can check and adjust relatively quickly now when we got a lot of tools. Right? You know, making sure we got, you know, garlic five cheese on air at the appropriate time based on the consumer and competitive landscape was important. The tools around loyalty and CRM to to leverage that is is an important tool.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

You know, it is intense. There is a lot of competitive activity out there. You know, you gotta win the hearts and minds from consumer, both from a value and a quality perspective. So I'd read I won't read too much into the the start to the quarter because I do think we've got a lot of tools at our disposal to to finish the quarter strong and and continue that momentum into the fourth quarter. But we're digging into the analytics.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We're continuing to look into, you know, what's working well, what we need to check and adjust, and, you know, really take a retail mindset to the data to make sure we're best connecting to the consumer no matter what the competitive landscape looks like. And, know, we're super competitive in q two, and we broke through and we brought in more customers and we drove sales growth. And, you know, we expect to do that in the back half of this year. And the foundational work that we've done over the last twelve months to really set ourselves up to to compete better, just into this year to finish it strong, but to really set us up for a strong 2026.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

And then, Eric, maybe maybe I'll provide some other, like, more specifics in terms of building blocks for the second half of the year that kind of underpins how we're thinking about the business. As Todd talked about, like, we have accelerated path of product innovations coming with new shareable pizza format with dipping sauce. We think that really resonates with Gen z, Gen alpha. Second, we we launched the garlic five cheese this week. We we think that is right down the fairway in terms of innovation for us, and it's something that feels unique to Papa John's given given our positioning.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

As Todd talked about, we're the largest pizza we've ever made in in the market. We think that is right for the consumer mindset right now. So we have a steady cadence of innovations that we think are specific to Papa John's, but also helps us break through with kinda where the consumer psyche is today. Second, from an of in calibration work, we're seeing consumer satisfaction scores continue to improve. And we think that matters a lot right now.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

When we pair together our our simple ingredients and our approach to to making pizza with even better consumer satisfaction score, we think that's gonna yield benefits. Third is, we're continuing to lean into to loyalty and using loyalty as a way to drive more and more personalization. So we're gonna continue to build on that momentum. And as Todd talked about, consumer accounts were up in February, and we're we're gonna really stay focused on that. And and then lastly, like, we're we're gonna continue to to think about all of our channels of the business from aggregators, delivery, carryout, and we're we're digging into the analytics every day and making sure we're we're we're staying nimble there.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

So there there are a couple of things out there that get us that that get us, like, focused in on how are we gonna unlock growth, in the second half of the year. And all of these elements I just talked about, we see as, like, foundational that is gonna allow us to continue to grow transaction share over over the next couple of years.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah. And just a quick comment to all of that. I mean, we've seen nice increases in our overall satisfaction at our restaurant level. We've seen improvements in taste with the work we've been doing on an oven calibration. And with the meet the makers campaign, we've seen strong gains in our brand health measurements for consideration, quality, and ad recall.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

So all of those things help support everything that Ravi just said to make sure that we're in the consideration set continue to drive our business in the back half and beyond.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Yeah. What what's maybe one last thing. Like, the the marketing team has done an amazing job on a turf analysis of where we have a right to play. One of the things that's clearly coming through in the data is that, like, Papa John's as a brand can continue to expand its TAM into into some of the adjacent categories around pizza. We're not necessarily rushing to go there tomorrow, but that is a lot of the work we're doing in the kitchen in terms of, like, how are we gonna continue to gain transaction share in the business and do it in a way that only Papa John's can.

Eric Gonzalez
Eric Gonzalez
VP & Equity Research Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

That's great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Jim Sanderson from Northcoast Research.

Jim Sanderson
MD & Research Analyst at Northcoast Research

Hey, thanks for the question. Just wanted to circle back to international. Wondering if you could update us on trends in The UK, whether those comps were out or underperforming the international trend? And more broadly, how should we look at the opportunity to see new unit growth in The UK going forward? Thank you.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

Yeah. We've been on a multiyear journey in in The UK, and we're really pleased in in terms So the the The UK was a low single digits comp in February, but it it's accelerated meaningfully in in July and, outperforming the the total international business even in July. But when we back further up, our our consumer satisfaction scores are way up. Our total time to delivers times are are way down, and we're driving really strong growth.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

And what we've really unlocked is focus on the most important markets and trade zones, really focused in on having a robust innovation calendar, and then paying it off with with great execution. So we still see a lot of comp upside in that business over the medium term. So we think that there there is meaningful system wide sales growth opportunity for us to go capture. We we will turn on the the development engine again in The UK in due course. But, fundamentally, I I think there's a lot of comp upside for us to to go capture.

Ravi Thanawala
Ravi Thanawala
EVP & CFO - International at Papa John’s International

And what we're really encouraged about our approach in The UK is we think we can unlock opportunity in many of our priority markets with this really clear focus around innovation, execution, and priority markets.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Yeah. It's been some great work in The UK on that whole transformation. And, you know, what's really exciting is the growth across international is really broad based. And, you know, credit to to to Ravi and and his leadership team on the international front. I know we're gonna continue to build momentum there, and it it's exciting.

Operator

At this time, I would now like to turn the conference back over to Todd Penegor for closing remarks.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

Well, thanks, everybody, for your time this morning. Appreciate it. Hard to believe that it's a year into to my journey with an unbelievable team here at at Papa John's. You know, we've touched everything, whether it's operational excellence, a marketing revamp, you know, tech innovation, being again the journey on refranchising, supply chain optimization, and ultimately, put a capital structure in place to really support all of these strategic initiatives. You know, our our our future is bright.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

We're energized. We got a spring in our step. We know it's gonna be a battle, and we'll continue to take you guys along for the journey. But pizza's super relevant. It's a great value for the money, and we're gonna be out there, Ravi and I and and Heather, over the upcoming months to really continue to tell that story and talk about our business with all of you.

Todd Penegor
President & CEO at Papa John’s International

So look forward to seeing you out at at some point at a at a conference or on a on a roadshow. And I just wanna thank all of our team members and and the franchise community for the partnership and the work to really set the foundation for long term sustainable growth in this business. So have a great day, everyone. Thanks for all the questions. Talk to you soon.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Executives
Analysts
    • Heather Hollander
      SVP - Strategy, IR & FP&A at Papa John’s International
    • Todd Penegor
      President & CEO at Papa John’s International
    • Tyler Prause
      Senior Research Associate at Stephens Inc
    • Andrew Strelzik
      Restaurant Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
    • Sara Senatore
      Senior Research Analyst at Bank of America
    • Alexander Slagle
      Equity Analyst at Jefferies
    • Chris O’Cull
      MD - Restaurants, Franchised Businesses at Stifel Institutional
    • Brian Mullan
      Director & Senior Research Analyst - Restaurant & Food Distribution at Piper Sandler Companies
    • Peter Saleh
      MD - Restaurants at BTIG
    • Eric Gonzalez
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