Pizza Hut to create 3,500 jobs

PIZZA HUT, Britain's biggest chain of pizza restaurants, is to create 3,500 new jobs through a pounds 100m expansion programme that will see 100 more outlets open over the next two years.

The planned expansion will increase the group's workforce to just under 18,000 and will take the number of Pizza Hut restaurants in the UK to 500.

Jon Prinsell, president and chief executive of Pizza Hut (UK), said it had the potential to triple its business in Britain over the next few years from the present turnover of pounds 300m a year.

"While in the US there is one Pizza Hut for every 30,000 people, and in Australia one per 45,000, in the UK there is only one Pizza Hut restaurant per 150,000," he said.

The addition of 100 new outlets will reduce that ratio to one restaurant for every 120,000 people.

Pizza Hut was founded 40 years ago in Wichita, Kansas and has 12,000 outlets worldwide in 86 countries. It is owned by the US corporation Tricon Global Restaurants, but in the UK Pizza Hut is operated as a joint venture with Whitbread.

The first Pizza Hut in the UK was opened in Islington, north London, and its 400th restaurant opened in Hampstead last month.