Ever since the John Schnatter years, Papa Johns has touted its pizzas with the same slogan: “Better Pizza. Better Ingredients.”

But CEO Todd Penegor hinted recently that the brand’s pies still might not be as good as they could be.

As The State reported, Penegor spoke at the Piper Sandler Growth Frontiers Conference, which took place last week in Nashville. Faced with sagging same-store sales in the past couple of years, including an 8.3% slump in Q2 2026 compared to the same quarter in the previous year, Penegor has been focused on a “transformation” for Papa Johns.

And, as he told attendees at the Growth Frontiers Conference, that might entail making changes to the pizza itself. Although Penegor still believes his company offers quality pizza, he said, “I think our real biggest opportunity, though, is really to focus on the core. What do we need to do to renovate our core?”

By “core,” Penegor presumably was referring to the crust, the sauce and the cheese. But he added, “We’re going to have to look at the quality of all of our ingredients. Lots of little things have changed for all the right reasons over many years, and we’re going to go back and look at everything—the sweetness of our dough, or sweetness of our sauce, and how our sauce is actually being developed and delivered,” he said.

Meanwhile, Papa Johns will kick off a new delivery partnership with Walmart this fall. At the Growth Frontiers Conference, Penegor said Papa Johns has additional plans for Walmart that will provide “a nice tailwind for our business” later in 2026.

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