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FOOD AND DRINK

Domino’s Pizza pulls out of Italy after failing to win over Italians

Customers in Italy found Domino’s Pizza outlets shut this week, as the company has reportedly left the country after seven years.

Published: 10 August 2022 11:11 CEST
Domino's Pizza has pulled out of Italy, news outlets reported on Tuesday.
Domino's Pizza has pulled out of Italy, news outlets reported on Tuesday. Photo by Brandon Bell/ Getty Images via AFP.

The multinational fast food giant has closed the last of its Italian branches, making its final delivery on July 29th, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

As of Wednesday morning no official announcement had been made by Domino’s representatives, but Italy has been removed from its map of international markets.

A New York Times correspondent who visited one former Domino’s site in Rome found it closed down and bearing a poster advertising a forthcoming piadineria (an Italian stuffed flat bread) franchise.

Searches for Domino’s Rome, Turin and Parma outlets via the company’s Italian site on Wednesday morning simply brought up the messages ‘SU-SA CLOSED’; its lone stores in Verona and outside Milan read “WE APOLOGIZE, BUT THE STORE NEAR YOUR LOCATION IS CURRENTLY CLOSED.”

The response from Italians on social media leaned heavily towards schadenfreude.

“Who would have thought Domino’s pizza wouldn’t have worked in Italy,” read one sarcastic tweet.

“So much the better, they’re not pizzas!,” wrote another.

A select few were disappointed, however.

“Sorry but I’m mad that Domino’s Pizza’s closing in all of Italy. I loved their four cheese pizza,” wrote one commentator (to the consternation of at least one respondent).

Domino’s first entered the Italian market in 2015, and before the coronavirus pandemic had plans to open over 800 stores, taking on debt to bring them to fruition.

But the global health crisis dramatically shifted the on-demand food landscape in Italy as small restaurant owners had to quickly adapt to a delivery model to avoid going out of business. 

As a result, Domino’s found itself faced with much stiffer competition than it had reckoned on.

Court filings show in April the company sought and was granted 90-day protection against creditors from a Milan court, which expired on July 1st, according to Bloomberg.

Its most recent annual report shows the company was €10.6 million in debt at the end of 2020.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

‘Extreme’ climate blamed for world’s worst wine harvest in 62 years

World wine production dropped 10 percent last year, the biggest fall in more than six decades, because of "extreme" climate changes, the body that monitors the trade said on Thursday.

Published: 26 April 2024 08:48 CEST
'Extreme' climate blamed for world's worst wine harvest in 62 years

“Extreme environmental conditions” including droughts, fires and other problems with climate were mostly to blame for the drastic fall, said the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) that covers nearly 50 wine producing countries.

Australia and Italy suffered the worst, with 26 and 23 percent drops. Spain lost more than a fifth of its production. Harvests in Chile and South Africa were down by more than 10 percent.

The OIV said the global grape harvest was the worst since 1961, and worse even than its early estimates in November.

In further bad news for winemakers, customers drank three per cent less wine in 2023, the French-based intergovernmental body said.

Director John Barker highlighted “drought, extreme heat and fires, as well as heavy rain causing flooding and fungal diseases across major northern and southern hemisphere wine producing regions.”

Although he said climate problems were not solely to blame for the drastic fall, “the most important challenge that the sector faces is climate change.

“We know that the grapevine, as a long-lived plant cultivated in often vulnerable areas, is strongly affected by climate change,” he added.

France bucked the falling harvest trend, with a four percent rise, making it by far the world’s biggest wine producer.

Wine consumption last year was however at its lowest level since 1996, confirming a fall-off over the last five years, according to the figures.

The trend is partly due to price rises caused by inflation and a sharp fall in wine drinking in China – down a quarter – due to its economic slowdown.

The Portuguese, French and Italians remain the world’s biggest wine drinkers per capita.

Barker said the underlying decrease in consumption is being “driven by demographic and lifestyle changes. But given the very complicated influences on global demand at the moment,” it is difficult to know whether the fall will continue.

“What is clear is that inflation is the dominant factor affecting demand in 2023,” he said.

Land given over to growing grapes to eat or for wine fell for the third consecutive year to 7.2 million hectares (17.7 million acres).

But India became one of the global top 10 grape producers for the first time with a three percent rise in the size of its vineyards.

France, however, has been pruning its vineyards back slightly, with its government paying winemakers to pull up vines or to distil their grapes.

The collapse of the Italian harvest to its lowest level since 1950 does not necessarily mean there will be a similar contraction there, said Barker.

Between floods and hailstones, and damp weather causing mildew in the centre and south of the country, the fall was “clearly linked to meteorological conditions”, he said.

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