Papa John’s narrow UK losses as turnover increases: The world’s third largest pizza company Papa John’s, which operates 191 franchised sites in the UK, has narrowed losses in the UK to £1,028,000 in the year to Christmas 2011 from £1,949,000 the year before. Turnover rose by 21.4 per cent from £18,906,000 to £22,943,000. The company reported that it had added 13 franchisees in the first eight months of 2012. It said: “During 2012, like-for-like retail sales from continuing operations in the franchised Papa John’s network grew significantly. The pizza market does, however, remain intensely competitive with significant promotional discounting continuing to take place in 2011 as prior years and this trend has continued through August 2012.” The company reported that orders through its website had increased by 32.9 per cent in the first six months of 2012. Papa John’s has set a target of opening 150 new sites in the UK in the next three years. Founder ‘Papa’ John Schnatter said: “We’ve been here in the UK for ten years now and we feel we have the infrastructure in place to start to make waves in the pizza industry. We recently invested £5.5 million in our own Quality Control Centre in Milton Keynes. This allows us direct control over manufacturing of our dough and distribution ensuring that our commitment to ‘Better Ingredients, Better Pizza’ and 100 per cent fresh dough can always be delivered. In addition this provided the capacity to allow us to expand further. In 2012, the importance of this investment becomes evident as we will break through the 200-store mark later in the year. However, none of us will be resting on our laurels. Papa John’s is looking to open at least another 150 stores in the next three years across the UK. This will represent an investment of £30 million, and create around 2,200 new jobs, at a time when many businesses are cutting back.” All the company’s corporate stores were sold to franchisees in 2010.