According to the Moscow Times, “Unlike in the United States where the pizza delivery industry is more than 50 years old, the Russian market started developing only in the 1990s and will demonstrate stable growth in the coming years with more customers ordering pizzas to homes and offices, a U.S. pizza delivery chain said.”

“Papa John’s Russia, one of Moscow’s pizza delivery chains that is capitalizing on a growing demand for the product, said that more and more Russians can afford to give up on their cooking routines, despite a setback for the market from the crisis. ‘People are working 12-hour days and spending one to two hours in traffic every day, and they are accustomed to going out and eating in restaurants,’ Christopher Wynne, chief executive of Papa John’s Russia said in an interview. ‘This leads them to accepting delivery as an option.’”

“Wynne, who flew reporters to the company’s headquarters in Louisville, said he expected the company’s same-store sales by delivery in Russia to increase 35 percent this year from last year. The number of calls from customers ordering pizza to homes and offices is higher with every year, said restaurant chain Sbarro, which generates up to 10 percent of its revenue from delivery sales. A year-on-year increase in the number of such orders was 22 percent in January through September this year, the company said in e-mailed comments. Orders to offices and homes accounted for 44 percent and 56 percent, respectively, it said. ‘Many customers have started to understand that it’s better to order a pizza made of fresh products than to buy frozen convenience foods,” Sbarro said. “Big city dynamics and rhythm also affect the growing popularity of pizza delivery. … Consumers have time only for having a bite.’”