Marco’s Pizza plans to expand beyond Puerto Rico and the Bahamas further into the Caribbean, Mexico and Latin America. The pizza brand aims to add more than 50 international locations by 2025 through strategic franchise partnerships. Specific targets include Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands.
Marco’s Pizza sees tremendous growth potential in Latin America, based on its experience in Puerto Rico, where it opened its first location in 2015. Marco’s Pizza is projected to double its Puerto Rico footprint as it expands to 19 locations by the end of 2019.
“Marco’s Pizza has experienced amazing success in Puerto Rico, and we expect to build upon this, expanding our footprint throughout the Caribbean and Latin America,” says Marco’s Chief Development Officer Ron Stilwell. “Marco’s is an organization rich in heritage and authenticity, and we pride ourselves on delivering a high-quality experience with a high-quality product.”
With an impressive $883,073 average unit volume, Marco’s Pizza is actively seeking strategic franchise partnerships to help grow its footprint in Costa Rica, Jamaica, Mexico and the Cayman Islands.
Earlier this year, Marco’s Pizza was named Most Loved and Most Trusted Pizza Brand, according to the 2019 Harris Poll EquiTrend Study. In the last year, Marco’s Pizza brand equity – a combination of familiarity, quality and purchase consideration – increased 10 percentage points, according to the study. Its brand equity scored higher than all other pizza restaurant brands, including Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and Papa John’s. This comes in a year of speedy growth for the franchise brand as it rapidly approaches 1,000 locations.
Opening a new store every three and a half days on average, Marco’s Pizza is committed to increasing its presence internationally by late 2020. As the only national pizza franchise chain founded by a native Italian, Marco’s Pizza has carved out a niche in the industry for authentic Italian quality pizza, known for its fresh dough made daily onsite, a proprietary cheese blend that is fresh, never-frozen, and a secret original pizza sauce recipe from its founder Pat Giammarco.
