001 - Domino's new pizza taste is just awful - an update

On December 20th, this blogger conducted his own informal taste test of the new Domino's Pizza formula. It was terrible:

I read that Domino's Pizza had a new recipe that aimed to "put away the competition" as CBS News reported. So I decided to order a sausage, bell peppers, and cheese version from the store on Grand Avenue here in Oakland.

Aside from the fact that the delivery person didn't understand how to use the intercom system where I live, and had to come twice, the pizza itself was just plain awful. Now, it was cold but warming it just worsened things. I'm sorry. I read that Domino's spend two years developing this new taste; what the heck were they thinking?

A pizza is made by the crust, the sauce, and the cheese. The Domino cheese, whatever it is, is so bad I don't even want to finish my pizza. And the sauce is so bland, it might as well not be on the pizza.

I'm now eating the Cesar Salad I ordered to go with it. In fact, I'd have been happier with just the salad!

Since then, commenters and emailer have responded to explain how much they like the new taste or to say I didn't have the new version of the pizza. So to prove that wasn't the case, I uploaded the video above. You can see that the box claims the new pizza is the one with Domino's Pizza'a new taste. And that was the pizza I called terrible.

Then, I received this email:

Hi Sir,
With refrence to our telephonic conversation ragrading your last experience with us at Domino's pizza I sincerely appologize for the inconvinience you had .
Just to make it up your next order is on us .
Again we appologize for inconvinience you had.
Best regards

Apparently Domino's Pizza Headquarters saw the blog post, contacted the Oakland Grand Avenue store, and the manager contacted me. He offered to provide another pizza made to order by my instructions, and on Domino's Pizza.

Since then, the call to order one has not yet happened, but Domino's Pizza has not stood still. Now, the fast food giant claims their last pizza version was terrible. The new marketing strategy has taken many by surprise. Econsultancy wrote:

Domino's Pizza has a confession to make: the pizza it has been selling for decades sucks. If you ever thought that the crust tasted like cardboard, or that the sauce tasted like ketchup, Domino's isn't going to argue with you. It knows.

Wow. But the problem I has was the new taste was worst than the old one. Of those who took issue with my blog post, I think most were Domino's Pizza plants: people hired by the firm to respond to my often-seen blog post either by commentary or email. Domino's has worked aggressively to get the word out that their new pizza is really better. They even have their own YouTube channel, with their latest pizza taste-test videos just having been uploaded one week ago:



Is all of this really the best approach? I don't know, but I'm going to take them up on their pizza offer.

Stay tuned.