Papa John's International, Inc. ($PZZA)

Good morning. I'm Dennis Geiger, restaurant analyst at UBS. I'm pleased to welcome and excited to have with us on stage, Todd Penegor, Papa John's President and CEO; Ravi Thanawala, Papa John's CFO and President, North America. Also representing Papa John's today are Heather Hollander, SVP, Investor Relations, FP&A and Strategy; and Sarah Burnett, Director of Investor Relations. Papa John's is a top 5 QSR pizza chain in the U.S. and has about 6,000 stores globally. The brand went through a transformational 2025 as it focuses on improving the health of franchisees in North America while continuing to deliver strong same-store sales growth internationally. And with that, Todd and Ravi, thanks so much for being here today.

Thanks for having us, Dennis. It's our pleasure.

Appreciate it. This is a treat. Todd, maybe start with you. You've been at Papa John's for about 1.5 years or so now. So I want to get some of your observations about the brand, the company and the opportunity ahead at a high level.

Yes. I guess a couple of reflections after the 18 months on the job. I mean it's a brand that clearly, consumers are pulling for. We've got a lot of brand loyalty. We had work to do to get back into position on value, which we have done. We wanted to continue to accentuate the quality and the aspects of how we stand out different in the category. And we've accomplished a lot of that. And we made a lot of progress on those brand health metrics side of the business. Where we've really been focused is what did we need to do to really attract new customers to the brand. And we had a lot of work to rebuild our innovation pipeline. We've done that. We've talked about the introduction of pan pizza that just launched here in the first quarter with a steady lineup, which we can come back to and talk about a little bit more, if you want, the rest of this year. So we're going to continue to lean into news. We had work to do to really make sure that we could deliver the innovation pipeline and really improve the core product, and we did that with the oven calibration work that we did last year where we slowed the ovens down and took the temperatures down, and that really set ourselves up for success. Lots of work on the technology front, some foundational, but some consumer-facing. The work that we've done to take the friction out of the app, the work that we continue to do on our website to make the ordering experience easier. The work that we're doing with Google around leveraging their ordering agent to drive some group ordering, voice ordering for our Papa John's Rewards members is going to pay its dividends over time. And we got our loyalty program back into position. Our loyalty customer is very loyal. We've seen redemptions double over the course of the last year for folks that are in the Papa John's Rewards program. It's a great long-term investment. Frequency is 2.5x that of a non-Rewards member. And we're seeing the fruits of all the hard work that was done in the international business before I even got there. And we've got a lot of momentum in the international business at the moment. And the last piece that has probably taken me a little longer with the team is really standing up our co-ops back out in the system. Pizza is a game played nationally but fought locally. We needed to get the local fight back. And as we talked about in our earnings call a couple of weeks ago, we now got 50 co-ops up representing about half of the U.S. system sales, which is really going to help us as the year progresses as we're going to have some more pressure local to complement the national spend that we have, but really do it in a unified force. So we're fighting as one team at the local level. So a lot of foundational work that's been done. We're on the trajectory of closing some of the nonperforming restaurants. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about that. We continue the journey on the refranchising front, 85 restaurants sold last year and another 29 or so in the Southeast that will get done here in shorter order, but really working down on the company ownership side to that mid-single-digit level in our North American business.

Terrific. Lots going on, lots to unpack. Before we get into that, though, maybe could you comment a little bit on reports out yesterday of a bid for the business? Any comments there to give?

Yes, I really can't comment any on the market speculation or market rumors. Thanks for asking, Dennis. I mean it's been a constant, right? I've been in the role 18 months, and I think almost the full 18 months, we've always had some kind of rumor out there around the brand. And we're really focused on being the best Papa John's that we can be and the best pizza makers in the business and really working hard to execute the strategy that we've laid out.

Terrific. Maybe we could start high level with the pizza category itself, particularly given your experience in some other large categories. Particularly in the U.S., how do you view the category? How do you view the long-term growth potential of the category and of course, Papa John's position within the category looking out over the coming years?

Yes, I think we're well positioned in the category. I think when you think about where we stand with a quality message, fresh, never frozen, original dough, 6 simple ingredients, all of those things are super relevant to the next generation of consumer. The pizza category is going to be a tried-and-true category. It will ebb and flow, but it will continue to grow over time. There's great value and a great connection from the consumer base to the product. The opportunity we have is to continue to innovate, bring news, bring folks in. News can be around the product, but the news can also be around technology to connect to the hearts and minds of that next generation of consumer. It is growing a little slower as a category than we've seen historically. But that's in the QSR pizza space. When you look at broader pizza, I mean, there is a lot of access to pizza, whether that's C-store, whether that's retail, whether that's in the frozen aisle. And we just got to really make sure that we stand out to really bring the bulk of the customer back into the QSR pizza category and tilt them in favor of a great quality and affordable price at Papa John's. So that's what we're focused on doing.

Great. You touched on affordability there and value a few minutes ago. How are you thinking about value for the brand in 2026, given the environment, given the competitive backdrop? Just how the Papa John's value -- you're positioned on value right now?

Yes. No, we've been partnering with the franchise system on that. And I know Ravi has spent a lot of time talking with them on that side of the equation. And you looked at where we went in the fourth quarter, we had the 50% carryout offer. We did have to meet the consumer where they were at with $9.99 create your own. We're able to trade folks up from $9.99 to $11.99 with the Pan launch, which is a good thing for our business, but still at a very affordable price point. And we'll continue to work and partner with the franchise community to make sure we work the barbell hard, having appropriate promotions, leveraging our rewards program where there's great value, leveraging CRM to be even more targeted. But anything else, Ravi, on that front? I know you spent a lot of time with the franchise community.

We've been really consistent in our Papa Pairings offering, which is our mix and match, and we've really focused in on driving like meaningful wear in with the consumer on that. And we see a lot of benefit in terms of our value perception from consistency and an offer that gives the consumer incredible choice. They know what to expect and continue to focus in on that. And we think that, that strategy applies to how we're going to think about like pan pizzas and sandwiches that with time and where in we'll have compelling premium products at solid price points, and we'll have the other part of the barbell really come to life. And over time, we'll have consistency in the mix and match and consistency in real premium innovation.

And I do think getting the local co-ops back up and having the local fight and making sure that whatever we're actually promoting nationally, they can complement either on the high end or the low end of the barbell at the local level and putting some of those dollars even to work in the aggregator environment where we know it's important to meet the consumer and compete there. Those are all levers that we have as the year progresses.

Great. Let's touch on -- I don't know if it's the other end of the barbell, but as we think about menu innovation, lots going on there as we think about '26 and longer term, you've talked about pan pizza, the sandwich, which is the protein crust pizza sounds really interesting. How do you think about innovation and how some of those items and others fit within the Papa John's menu?

Yes. What we really needed to do is bring in new customers and bring back some of the lapsed customers. I mean we're doing really well with our existing customer base. The loyalty program is working really hard for us. But we needed to create some news and excitement. And some of the news is to break out of the sea of sameness. The work I said earlier on the oven calibration has really set all of this up. Pan is a big move. We didn't play there. It's a big part of the category, and we've got a great pan that we can make without operational complexity. It's a pass. The old days, it was a 1.5 pass through the oven, which is really challenging. But we do know that we've struggled beyond core pizza, right? We've had challenges with sides. So we've got some work coming on affordable sides to make sure that, that add-on can be at an appropriate price point. We talked about taking Papadias and Papa Bites off the menu. They're truly rhythm breakers. They -- you could be making a lot of pizzas and then you get into those two products and they take it right out of rhythm. There's operational complexity, and they've been in decline, and there isn't great repeat. So we're pulling those out. We've been testing how do you manage into the handheld space. And our sandwich business has tested really well, and that's a lot less operationally complex. And then we've got some fun stuff coming. We know we got to meet the consumer where they're at. And single-serve pizza, especially in today's environment, is an important one to have on the menu, and we got a really cool collaboration on a partnership that will come to life over the summer, which we're really excited about. But anything else, Ravi, that I missed on that front?

I think from an innovation standpoint, we continue to think really carefully about products that drive great repeat and products that are simple enough for us to execute well within our entire menu, and we're always thinking about like how are we going to execute perfect pizzas on Friday night. And that's an important part of our innovation strategy. And it's an important tweak. We've really been focused in on making sure that the restaurants are well supported to deliver great pizzas in peak periods.

And that's been our focus, Dennis. It's like first and foremost, how do we become the best pizza makers in the business? How do we train, how do we support? How do we take some of the complexity out to make sure there's a great experience with every visit. And Ravi has really been pushing that customer service mindset out across the system. But over time, as we really calibrate and work those ovens, we can become the best bakers in the business. And there's opportunities to continually expand our TAM and total addressable market and be more akin to your local mom-and-pop pizzeria with the offerings that we have, do it in an operationally efficient manner, but do it at much more affordable price points. And that's how we're starting to evolve to make sure we can compete even better and really stay true to that better ingredients, better pizza quality messaging we've always had.

And just on that, Todd, do you guys think you're getting the credit currently? I know this has kind of been a debate in recent years for the better quality, the better ingredients. Where do you think that journey stands with the customer recognition?

Yes, it's interesting. Folks know us and can repeat the moniker, right, better ingredients, better pizza. I think they do give us some credit for quality. But in today's environment where it is so price sensitive, it's not as big of a tiebreaker today as I would have hoped it would be. But I do think over time, it's clearly one that will set us apart. And especially as we evolve to be more like akin to a hometown pizzeria at an affordable price point, our quality will shine through. And we get credit. I mean, as you look at our quality perception scores, we do get credit, but the consumer is a little more strapped and really focused on value first and quality second. But we'll continue to tell our story. Everything we've done with the Meat the Makers campaign and really talking about our 6 simple ingredients and what we do and the full customization and how we can really set up a high-quality pizza for the consumer is spot on where we need to be long term. We just have to stay true and deliver on that promise day in and day out. And that's why Ravi has been focused on the customer experience, setting our teams up for success and even upgrading some of our storefronts.

Yes. And we design parts of our menu to have pricing parity with the competitive set to allow for trial and low barrier switching. So we want to win consumers over. We believe that consumers need to trial our product, and that's why our mix and match, which is called Papa Pairings is at $6.99 and comparable to the competitive set. So we'll balance our barbell strategy to win consumers' hearts and minds through innovation and give low barrier trial through strategies like our mix and match.

Just as -- you both mentioned operations as it related to innovation a few minutes ago. Any additional items, at least at a high level that have to come off the menu as you bring some of the new items on? I mean it seems like everything is being done through the lens of operations and making sure operations are smooth.

No, I think we've taken off what we need to take off. I mean the big focus was the major rhythm breakers. I mean we've done a few nips and tucks around some SKUs, but those are two products that have been on the menu for a while. But I think it's beyond just pulling the SKUs off. It's what do we need to reinforce around being out in our restaurants and making sure that we're out there, not just holding folks accountable with coaching. But why don't you talk about some of the service mindset work that you've been doing with the system, Ravi?

Yes. What's really been driving our strategy in terms of menu simplification, it's through the filter of what drives consumer satisfaction, what is -- have healthy flow-throughs to profitability and what ultimately drives repeat of consumer behavior. So as we're spending more time with the franchisee community talking about the future of the menu. We've been really rallying around those notions. It's like we want great satisfaction scores and do those products drive repeat. And from a service standpoint, we're just laser-focused on friendliness and service and carryout is a meaningful part of our business. So we have a moment to have a meaningful rich engagement with the consumer, and we cherish those moments because that's part of the overall experience we're trying to drive.

Yes. No doubt. How about on the marketing side? Todd, you just made some comments about local as part of that. How do we think about the marketing strategy, investment levels in marketing? And any insights into -- you touched on kind of partnerships and maybe a collaboration just now. Anything high level to touch on the marketing side?

I think our opportunity is, one, we'll continue to be out there telling our story around the high quality that we deliver in our pizza experience. Two, with a steady dose of innovation, you'll see us really making sure that we recruit those new customers into our brand, still through the lens of quality, but with news. And we did plus up and are continuing to investment spend off of our P&L. I mean we spent $24.5 million last year to support the system. This year, we've talked about spending $22 million. Some of that is incremental marketing. Some of that is helping fund margin to make sure we compete at appropriate price points. But some of that incremental marketing is allowing us to get those co-ops stood back up. So what we're really working is make sure that the efficiency and the media mix is strong. We continue to evolve kind of our linear and digital mix to make sure it meets the customer where they're at and connects with that next generation of customer. But we know we've been competing without that local layer and a coordinated local layer. And it's not just coordination within the DMA, which is important. And today, we don't have that in many DMAs. But coordination what happens at the local level across that DMA with the national message. So it truly complements it. And as the year progresses and we set up those co-ops, we'll have all the national pressure, which is very efficient. And then you'll complement it with the local message, which may not be as efficient, but it's very effective. So we're really trying to make sure we got that mix right. And that will be a benefit back half of this year as those co-ops get stood back up and into next year as we start to lap over that co-ops because you'll have incremental more pressure, especially this year with us spending off our P&L and the co-ops getting stood back up. But when you get the full year impact of the co-ops in 2027, that's when we know we can start pulling some of that investment down off of our P&L because we'll have net-net even more pressure into the market with the local set back up.

And when we look at 2026, our marketing pressure will be up low teens versus last year. So we continually see in the metrics, the impact of the local co-ops being stood up and that was designed to be coordinated as we're pressing further into our innovation calendar now and driving wear in, which we believe will drive long-term value as the products we're launching, we believe have strong repeat rates for the long term.

Terrific. You both touched a bit on the importance of recruiting new customers to the brand, and I suspect we touched on a lot of the drivers there. Are there sort of key initiatives, key parts of the strategy that are most important to bring those customers in? Because I think you've talked about when the customers are in, you've done a really good job of retaining those customers. Anything in particular that you would highlight, hey, this is what we really have to get right to bring some of those customers and recruit them.

The steady dose of innovation will clearly help us bring in new customers. We will have to pulse in some attractive price points because price does bring in some new customers along the way. And we're going to have to continue to stay sharp and compete well in third-party aggregator space. There is an opportunity to bring customers in. They're a little harder to convert and make as a loyalist in the 3P channel, but there is that opportunity for them to fall in love with Papa John's all over again if we can drive trial in that channel. Anything else you'd add, Ravi?

We need to continue to communicate to consumers that we have great value and you can find products on our menu that are comparable price to the competition. We have an opportunity to wear that in, and that's a long-term strategy. We started that 18 months ago or slightly more, and we're still on that journey, but there's a lot more room to grow there because we need to drive trial and our value component of our menu is a great spot to try for the first time.

Great. How about -- as we think about those customers and as we just kind of break down the performance of the consumer within your customer base, any callouts there, any kind of shift that you guys have seen in recent quarters on performance by income cohort in particular?

As we lean deeper into value, particularly in Q4, and we saw a slight indexing higher with lower income consumers and entering the brand from that standpoint. So we do see value as effective at reaching more and more consumers. We continue to see innovation perform really well with our consumers who are loyal to brands, and that cuts across all income cohorts. Yes.

That's great. How about as it relates to sales growth for the year and kind of the expectation on the same-store sales trajectory domestically playing out through the year? And kind of what are the big levers, I guess, shaping that curve?

Yes. We believe that Q1 will be the softest quarter. As we think about shaping of the year, we're really focused in on wearing in on our two meaningful innovation platforms coming, our pan pizza, which has been out for a month and sandwiches, which are coming up very soon. We're also going to be posting in value across the year. And the third meaningful lever, as Todd talked about, is local co-ops, which is going to allow for our media pressure to continue to grow in this environment, and we see that as really valuable.

Terrific. And then just as you think about traffic and check and even kind of mix, and you've seen some dynamics with mix over the last year or two. How do you think about that, if you want to break that down at all for 2026?

Yes, I can start, Ravi, and add a little color. I mean we don't see a lot of check benefit coming in this calendar year. We're assuming that the consumer is going to continue to be challenged, that the competitive landscape is going to be tight, not just in pizza QSR, but across all the QSR. So we're going to be smart on how we deliver value to the consumer. And and not get too far ahead of our skis on what we're trying to do around check. So the declines that we kind of laid out, the down 2% to 4% in North America are really driven by transactions. But first quarter, we guided down kind of that mid-single-digit range. So if you think about our full year impact, you've got 120, 140 basis points really coming out of the first quarter start on the full year. And we do know that Papa Bites and Papadia removals will have some impacts, right? Those are going to come out as the rhythm breaker, things like handheld sandwiches will come in, take a little time to recoup all of those sales. But we still have to address where we've really been challenged this last year. And it's on our non-pizza items. I mean you look at our core pizza sales, last year, we sold 4% more pies than we did the year before. Unfortunately, it was trade down from large to medium and from premium into core. But -- and that had an impact on check and price, but it was really the size, and we're addressing that with the innovation calendar and a pricing strategy and trying to figure out is there other cool things to really drive add-on that will help us get the check realization that's in control of the customer rather than us driving it.

Great. I want to touch on channel a little bit. We've touched on it for a little bit here, but maybe talking about the first-party delivery business and the focus there. Obviously, it's been a bit more challenged for the industry -- for the category, I would say. But how do you look at the opportunity for first-party delivery? And then for carryout. And I think you both talked about the carryout opportunity. So maybe if we take both of those channels.

Start with carryout. We see carryout as an important channel for the consumer to be able to get a great value from Papa John's. And it's part of our business that we believe that there is still a meaningful market share opportunity for us to continue to go get. And we see that as an important way to drive trial as well because it's a very price competitive component of the business. On a first-party delivery standpoint, we're really thinking about attacking the opportunity through many of the things that Todd mentioned. It's innovation coming through the calendar, new digital experience that allows us to engage with the consumer really directly, innovation, particularly with our Google Cloud partnership to be more on the tip of the spear in terms of what consumer expectations are. Those are really the drivers that we're focused in on that. And our franchisees have their hearts and minds in terms of like what are we going to do as a group to continue in the system to transform that first-party delivery business.

Yes. I think we've been really looking at, especially in our priority markets, where do we need to refresh our storefronts to really make sure you got a full grade carryout experience. We've made some progress, but we know we've got more to make on that front. And I do think the partnership that we have with the Google team, really trying to figure out how do you make sure we have a truly differentiated experience in first party, whether that's voice ordering, whether that's easy group ordering, leveraging AI, those will be fun things that will only happen if you get into a first party and through our app. So we're going to continue to drive those things. And we got to think about is there an opportunity to reinvent. We're behind on delivery tracking. Is there an opportunity to reinvent how that whole delivery experience happens, right, around the transparency of the product when it's getting down the make line, how the pizza is greater when it comes on the door, how it holds heat retention to the door. Don't know where that journey is going to quite take us yet, but we're working and testing a couple of hypotheses. And it should be fun to see if that can truly resonate with the consumer and then help us stand out versus the competitive set.

And then in our top 15 markets, we have like deep density. We have meaningful market share. We have a clear ability to reach consumers with great service, great speed. So as we think about leaning into our priority markets and innovating, we see those markets as great jumping off points to reshape what the first-party delivery experience can be for the consumer.

Let's shift over to third party in the channel there and maybe kind of what the latest update there is on third party. And I think, Todd, you kind of alluded to some opportunities maybe to lean in more there, I think, with marketing and other perhaps. So maybe just the biggest opportunities for you to grow and continue growing third party.

Yes. Why don't you start, Ravi, I'll provide some color. You spent a lot of time on that.

In Q4, the aggregators, third-party grew low single digits. The marketplace has gotten more competitive from a price point standpoint. And it's requiring us to continue to shift in terms of like how are we going to reach consumers, how are we going to drive relevance in this moment in time. So our marketing teams are thinking every day, every week right now on what are the minor tweaks we're going to make to continue to drive market share there. We've been in the aggregators for 5 years. So our team has a lot of history and a lot of tests on what drives impact. At the highest level, though, we're going to compete where the consumer is. And if the consumer is in the aggregators, we're going to push hard to fight for share and continue to gain share there. And as we talked about, we're a top 5 QSR player -- top 5 QSR pizza player. We still have opportunity for consumers to drive trial. And we see the aggregators as a meaningful place where we get to win consumers' hearts and minds.

Terrific. Let's shift over to loyalty. A lot of focus there on enhancing the program. Can we touch on how that's going, the benefits and maybe where the further opportunity applies for loyalty?

Yes. No, I think we've made a lot of progress, clearly in the spirit of creating more value and driving more frequency in the loyalty program. The changes we made I don't know, 14, 15 months ago as we rebased kind of the rewards program has clearly engaged the Rewards member. I mean we're up to 41 million members in the loyalty program. The opportunity is always how do you continue to leverage CRM and hyper-personalized communication to continue to drive frequency. But we have seen frequency gains within our loyalty consumer. And as I said earlier, the frequency of our loyalty consumer is 2.5x our non-loyalty consumer. So we've made it very easy to earn rewards. It's very transparent and clear because you're getting hard, cold cash back with each purchase, you start to earn. The question is, how do you gamify, how do you create some streaks? How do you continue to make it even more engaging? And then how do we continue to make sure that as we drive and bring in some of these new customers through innovation, to your earlier point, Dennis, how do we make sure that we get them to really know that they can get the best available deal and the best experience if they get over into the app. So we're feeling really good that that's working hard. Our core customer is really loyal, and we're seeing a lot of progress on that front. Biggest opportunity is really leveraging value now that we're in position on value, leveraging innovation to really bring in those new customers into our brand.

Terrific. Away from loyalty, but sticking with digital still, how do we feel the app and e-commerce is generally positioned? Are there opportunities to further enhance that? I think you touched a little bit on the app earlier, but...

Always opportunities. I mean we've done a lot of work on the app to really take a lot of the friction points out, how many clicks to order, how easy is to reorder, what's the role of voice to make it even easier? How do you actually help on a group order, which is always really hard when you're trying to coordinate a lot of folks. All of those things are in flight and on its way. We know we've got opportunities still to continue to enhance the web ordering, and we've made progress, and we'll continue to work that front. We're -- we know we've also got work at the restaurant level with our POS system. So our POS system is a homegrown 30-plus year old system. It is time for an upgrade and a refresh. And we've partnered with PAR to bring that to life. That will take the better part of this year and next year to get that all up and running across the U.S. system. But it will be a great platform that will enable us to create better experiences, not just for the customers, but for our employees and teams as we get more visibility day in and day out to the business, a better back office to leverage, a better labor guide to leverage to drive the economic model. So lots of work on the tech front. We brought a lot of talent in on the tech side, and we're making a lot of progress. Some of it's the heavy lifting with partners on POS and a lot of it is where you lean in where the consumer is going with the partnership on the Google front. But any other thoughts on tech, Ravi?

We're thinking about technology through the filter of what's going to drive demand generation and ultimately, how are we going to leverage technology to continue to drive 4-wall profitability. And we see a clear path forward to drive meaningful improvement to the 4-wall margin rates. And technology is a component of that, and that comes to life through service proposition, ease of executing in the back office, continue to drive conversion rate on consumers coming to our platform.

I think the piece that the team moved really fast on, Dennis, is we had so much data, and our data was pristine, right, name, telephone number, address. And we just hadn't been able to mine it and parse it the way we should, and we're doing that now. We do -- we're on the journey to hyper-personalization. And I do think really understanding the consumer being able to connect to them has been a big part of what helps complement the loyalty program to drive the frequency there. The opportunity is how do we use that even more in the journey from recruiting new customers in and getting over into the loyalty program.

Terrific. Let's shift gears over to restaurant development, and we touched a little bit on some of the closures. But maybe first, as we think about -- as you think about 2026 gross opens on the closure side of things and then maybe we can jump to kind of beyond '26, how we think about the store growth trajectory.

Well, if you think about 2025, I mean, opening 279 restaurants across the globe was a big accomplishment in the market that we had. You think about our guidance this year, a little more tighter in the U.S. business with recent trends in North America being 40 to 50. But international, 180 to 220, still a lot of opportunity, a lot of white space and a lot of momentum in that business. So working the pipeline hard, not just to solidify and deliver on those commitments for this year, but how do we really set ourselves up for success in 2027. Ravi can talk about a little bit of the work that we're doing on joint capital planning with some of our biggest franchisees. But before you even go there, Ravi, why don't you talk a little bit around the view we took to closures and the work we're doing to really set our system up for long-term success?

Yes. Like the view we took was even less about closures, but it was about having like really thoughtful marketplace plans for all the important DMAs across the U.S. and how we want to evolve and modernize the fleet and making sure we're serving the consumers well. So we took a filter of looking at AUV performance, age of the asset, quality of the trade zone, what the image of the restaurant is, what's the potential recapture. And we use all of those metrics to help inform like what is the future optimized version of the marketplace that is going to help to modernize the fleet and continue to drive 4-wall profitability gains. We do see that the recapture rate in our business can be very meaningful. So as we've down this path of nipping and tucking within the fleet, we see real opportunity to create focus on the go-forward fleet and create some capacity to reinvest. The closures for 2026 and 2027, they have a slightly higher tilt to the West and Southwest parts of the U.S. We continue to perform really well across most of America, and we still see more opportunity. So we see like 2026 from a gross development standpoint as a year that we're focusing on being the best operators we can continue to lean into the innovation that we have coming and taking some very concrete steps to drive 4-wall margins and -- we talked about on our last call that the top 50% of our fleet is at a $1.4 million AUV and a 12% EBITDA margin roughly. And the top 75% of the fleet is at 1.2 million AUVs and slightly north of a 10% EBITDA margin. And we're addressing much of the bottom quartile of our fleet through like this targeted approach to closures and the targeted approach to closures is really, really focused in on this notion of make the market stronger. And we think that's just the next phase of the transformational journey we're in. And Todd talked about like the local co-ops, like adding the local co-ops at this time is still allowing us to grow media pressure year-on-year. So we have slightly fewer restaurants, but we actually have more media pressure and better 4-wall economics.

I do think as we think about setting the system up for long-term success, I mean, closures play a role, right, to make sure we're not spending time, energy and effort chasing an asset that is not well positioned to succeed in the long run. There is probably some healthy system optimization that should happen. How do we reposition our franchise system. We've got a lot of franchisees that have been spread all over and how do we get them a little more consolidated in certain parts of the country. But we've got the tools to do that between doing joint capital plans on closures, but also having company restaurants that could be available for sale. As Ravi gets out and sits down and has those discussions with some of our larger operators, there's a lot of tools that we have on the table to really evolve how our franchise base is set up and also to recruit some new franchisees into the system, which is always healthy. And I know that's taken a big part of your time right now, Ravi.

And we executed this playbook in the U.K. over the last few years, and we reduced the size of the fleet there of 15% to 20%, and it was done through almost the exact same marketplace filter, driving franchise to franchisee transfers. And during that time, we've seen AUVs grow 17% from 2023 to 2025. And we're building on that momentum and the comps continue to perform really well and the innovation calendars come to life, and we recalibrated the ovens. So many of the things that we're talking about doing in the U.S. is the playbook that our team has executed in the U.K. over the last two years.

Yes. Makes good sense. Maybe let's just stick with the U.S. and kind of touch on franchisee sentiment and how receptive they are to the work that you're doing as it relates to demand and understanding we're in sort of a transformational period at the moment, but how do we think about demand to grow incentives maybe coming from you folks as we think about that U.S. pipeline maybe looking ahead?

Yes. And franchisee sentiment is mixed at times, and it's mixed right now. And we see the bifurcation is in franchisees who have had a long-term strategy around high transaction count and a healthy mix of value, we see their financial performance and their sentiment higher than potentially lower transaction-oriented and more premium price points as we've leaned into value more on a national level. So when we think about the development mindset, I think there's a lot of encouragement in the franchisee community that we're calibrating around what the long-term fleet strategy is, how are we transforming markets, thinking about their balance sheets and their profitability to ensure that we are being really constructive as a franchisor to make sure they're positioned for long-term growth. And then secondly, we've rolled out long-term development incentives. And what we're really focused in on there is we want to give visibility to the franchisee community for the next couple of years, what development incentives will look like so they can have a great long-term plan in terms of how they want to drive capital allocation. And to Todd's point, the last thing we've really started to lean into is this notion of joint capital planning, where my team is sitting down with the franchisee communities and starting to plot out like what do we want to change in their portfolio and how are we going to go from 2026 to 2028 and 2030 in terms of full transformation. So with that said, there's a lot of demand and hunger in terms of like taking this transformational lens and bringing it down to that specific franchisees and how they are going to evolve their portfolio. And it's been great balancing that conversation with this hyper focus on operational excellence, service mindset and making sure we are executing the best pizzas every single day.

And the system knows we're taking a long-term vision on the business. They know it is a transformation. They know we got work to strengthen the foundation. They're seeing the early wins and early progress. And they know to get the fruits of all of that takes some time, but they know we're leaning in, right? We're investing, as we talked about earlier off our P&L. We're creating fuel to do that with the work we're doing on the noncustomer-facing G&A front and delivering over this year and next $25 million plus of G&A savings and $13 million in the guidance for this year. And then really turning over the supply chain network, and it's not a cost-plus model. It needs to be how do you drive efficiency across all the supply chain to drive the 4-wall margin to really set the franchise community up for long-term success to invest back into their restaurants and their people into technology. And we've got great line of sight with the work that Kurt Milburn and the team have been doing over in supply chain. The $60 million plus of savings that we'll see over the period of now in 2028 and upping the $20 million to $25 million that's going to get delivered in this calendar year. That's going to help us over the near term, deliver upwards of 200 basis points of margin enhancement for the system. A portion of it from the supply chain work, a lot of it from some of the labor optimization that Ravi is doing and the closures certainly help contribute to that number, too. So really trying to set the foundation of the business for the long run and making sure that we are really thinking about this business for the long run, not just chasing short term, doing the things fundamentally strong that set the foundation up so we can have a great run on the backside of the transformation.

Great. I want to shift over to international and then just kind of touch on the growth strategy there, latest updates on progress. I know you talked about the U.K. and maybe how that becomes a bit of a blueprint to some extent for the U.S., but maybe just success internationally and then the growth strategy in those...

I'll let you talk, you had the international business last year, Ravi, before you turned it over to Chris Lyn-Sue. So want to talk about some of the great progress.

Yes. Look, our focus in international is really about taking a priority market strategy. So I almost never talk about the international business in total. We talk about what's happening with the individual consumer segments within those countries, and we're hyper focused on making sure we have a clear innovation strategy in those markets and strong partnership with the franchisees to talk about what are the next rounds of unlock of growth from either a product strategy standpoint or how we're leveraging the learnings from other markets. We have also, across the international portfolio, specifically taking steps to nip and tuck in the portfolio as well. So we're about 2 years ahead in the international business of executing this notion of like we're driving AUVs. We're highly product-centric. We think about our priority markets first. And we've just been on that drumbeat. And we have great consumer-minded leaders that are plotted across the world that are in market often with the franchisees really executing the plan. And I see that business is just one that has momentum and the momentum is foundational. It's consumer-led, it's stronger and stronger AUVs and franchisees that are committed to a long-term growth narrative. So when we opened up the India market recently, our objective was is like only focus on one city. And within that city, we're going to go focus on a few trade zones. And let's get incredibly good at delivering fantastic service and driving amazing brand advocacy there, and we'll grow from that portion of that mindset. And we think that, that mindset has really penetrated the franchisee community and our entire team, and it's going to set us up for the long term to truly become a great global brand.

The narrow deep focus has been key. I mean, not just within a market, as Ravi just articulated, but across our 50-plus markets that we compete in internationally. I mean the core 8, which the team has been really focused on, some of the work we're doing to get to maybe the top 12 or 13, that is the focus that it's going to take. And those are the markets that are really going to drive the progress and the momentum. And momentum breeds more momentum. It's been a lot of great work on the innovation front. The Croissant pizza that was done internationally was a killer. The work that they've done on their chicken renovation in the U.K. is really strong. We just had that whole team in for business review in the test kitchen this past week and lots of fun stuff that's about to come on the innovation pipeline internationally, but they set themselves up for success to do it really well operationally, high customer satisfaction scores across many of those markets.

Terrific. In the last 15 seconds or less, anything on Middle East? You've got some exposure, anything that you're seeing or kind of commentary there?

Yes. I mean, too early to tell. I mean we're going to continue to watch what the impact is back here in the U.S. around gas prices. And clearly, in all the QSR disposable personal income is the biggest driver. So we're going to have to watch that. That said, we've got great value on our menu. So maybe we do see some more trade down that actually helps our business. Early days in the Middle East, business has hung in there quite nicely. I mean folks have been sheltered in place and folks are getting a lot of pizzas delivered at the moment. We'll have to think about all the disruption to supply chain over time. So hopefully, it doesn't last too long, but we're working the contingency plans to manage through that.

Terrific. Well, Todd, Ravi, we're out of time, but this has been great. I appreciate you guys sharing your time and your insights, and we appreciate it very much.

Our pleasure. Thanks, Dennis. Appreciate it.