The most critical moment in the history of the Pizza Prime pizzeria chain coincided precisely with its biggest strategic turnaround. In March 2020, a few months after officially structuring the franchise model, the company had 12 stores sold and was in the final phase of implementation.
“On March 15th I sat down and thought: ‘let’s break it’. There was no manual, there was no precedent, there was no reference”, recalls Gabriel Concon, in an interview with the program From Zero to Top, which tells the stories of successful entrepreneurs. “The next day I woke up and said: ‘there’s nothing to do but work’. We canceled everything we could and focused on opening the stores”
While much of the food sector had to quickly learn how to operate in delivery to maintain flow during the pandemic, Pizza Prime was born with this DNA. The units opened even amid restrictions. The salon gave way to lean operations, with an absolute focus on efficiency, time and standardization.
“We were experts in delivery when everyone was forced to turn to delivery. “The pandemic was terrible for society, but in business we rode a wave. Millions of new users came to delivery”, recalls the CEO.
Growth, however, brought side effects. Between 2020 and 2022, the network practically doubled in size. The feeling, says Gabriel, was that selling was easy. With the reopening of restaurants and food inflation at historic levels, the bill has arrived.
“Mozzarella cost R$50 per kilo. The movement fell and the margin disappeared. If 2023 hadn’t come, we would think that everything we did up until then was right. It wasn’t.”
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Coming out of the post-pandemic, according to Gabriel, Pizza Prime was not only bigger, but also more organized. The new phase includes heavy investments in central kitchen, technology, data intelligence and new operating formats.
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Today, Pizza Prime operates with more than 80 physical stores spread across 11 Brazilian states, around a thousand employees in the units and a corporate structure that brings together an average of 100 professionals including the franchiser, central kitchen and back-office.
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Annual revenue is around R$200 million. The main pillar of the next phase of growth is the new factory under construction, four times larger than the current one, designed to serve up to 300 stores with centralized production, standardized portioning and strict cost control.
The operation remains focused on delivery, responsible for more than 90% of orders, in addition to automation in service and investments in technology to scale efficiency without losing margin.
Despite international surveys, the focus remains on the domestic market. The strategy involves new formats: kiosks, universities, parks, airports and mobile projects.
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“You can build a gigantic business in Brazil. A city of 20 thousand inhabitants deserves the same pizza as São Paulo. And it’s not just street stores. Pizza can be everywhere”, concludes the founder.
To find out more details about Gabriel Concon’s entrepreneurial journey and the delivery market, see the full episode on The program is available and in its podcast version on the main streaming platforms such as , , , and .
About From Zero to Top
The Do Zero ao Topo podcast is a production of InfoMoney and brings, every week, the stories of prominent women and men in the Brazilian market to tell their story, sharing the biggest challenges faced along the way and the main strategies used in building the business.
