Thai Pizza Huts hurt by cheese costs

BANGKOK: -- Pizza lovers will soon have to pay more at Pizza Hut because the chain can no longer hold the line on prices of menu items using cheese, which has increased in cost by 36 percent globally.

Panithan Sethabutr, managing director of Yum Restaurants International (Thailand), which holds the local franchise rights for Pizza Hut and KFC, said yesterday that the company is deciding how much it should charge and how to justify that against the food’s perceived value.

The rising price of cheese, due to declining numbers of dairy farms worldwide, and the problem of mad cow disease in some countries have created a major headache for Pizza Hut.

--The Nation 2004-10-01

just put some more chicken on it

maybe thailand should try to become the dairy hub of asia.

Very sad news indeed. I need my Pizza Slut. For god sakes man, will someone just give Thailand some cheap cheese. These bastards aren't rich enough, and my percentage of fat to body weight is dropping drastically. Cheese, now!

The Dairy Udder of Asia.

Time they learnt to produce some decent cheese here.

The do have the milk!!

my post was only half in jest.

random chances being the dairyman on the forum should be able to tell us about the cheese making potential of thai dairys.

my post was only half in jest.

random chances being the dairyman on the forum should be able to tell us about the cheese making potential of thai dairys.

Good call Stumonster!

I want to see Thai Brie, Roquefort and Camembert... not to mention Tom Yam and Green Tea flavoured cheese.

Pizza Company is superior I think. I understand they use locally produced mozzarella cheese, so maybe their prices won't go up so quickly.

The mozzarella cheese in Chiang Mai is pretty good, but the Cheddar sucks.

On my last visit to NZ, I didn't notice any increase in cheese prices. It might help alot if they reduced the import duties into Thailand for cheese or anything else for that matter

Has anyone checked to see if this is also a problem for Pizza Huts elsewhere in the world? Or is this just a local scam to try to squeeze more profits out of the pizza market? Why isn't "Pizza Company" complaining in a similar way? Maybe they force Pizza hut to buy special franchise cheese or something?

If nothing else, a price jump of this magnitude would (in theory) prompt someone to take the "business opportunity" to increase the supply- in a normal market. Unfortunately, Thailand is about as far from a normal market as you can get.

"Steven"

Pizza Company is superior I think. I understand they use locally produced mozzarella cheese, so maybe their prices won't go up so quickly.

The mozzarella cheese in Chiang Mai is pretty good, but the Cheddar sucks.

The Pizza uses cheese? Have never noticed enough to taste on my local shops pizza and switched to Pizza Hut where you do get some cheese. But suspect that may be a local problem.

First is Petrol now is Cheese and I wonder when is the salary!

Why isn't "Pizza Company" complaining in a similar way?

Because they own the company that makes the cheese for them

So can anyone tell me where I can get GOOD pizza in Bangkok ? I mean the kind of pizza an Italian wouldn't sneer at. Something close to the real thing.

Any suggestions ?

A pizza addict

While shopping in Tops (Songkhla) yesterday I noticed a slab of Cheddar cheese has gone up from 112 baht to 135 baht.

So can anyone tell me where I can get GOOD pizza in Bangkok ? I mean the kind of pizza an Italian wouldn't sneer at. Something close to the real thing.

Any suggestions ?

A pizza addict

The worst pizza I ever had was in Italy (no actually, that's not entirely true, the Norwegian pizza was a tad worse, but the pizza in all countries I've been to except for Norway has been better than the Italian pizza).

My advice: Try Sweden for fantastic pizza (mostly Turks and Kurds make it, and they have made it a fine art. Huge pizzas with leaf-thin doe and creative choices of topping, not the carbohydratical pan pizza monsters of the American variety which can also be good though...)