Big data is helping create your pizza — at least in Taiwan, where the latest nontraditional topping features a mash of pig’s blood cake and century eggs.
As demand for Western fast food boomed during Taiwan’s recent COVID-19 outbreak, Pizza Hut Holdings LLC scraped social media posts for the most talked about foods, and created word clouds of potential new ingredients.
“We leveraged social listening to understand customers’ preferences,” Pizza Hut Taiwan general manager Antony Leung (梁家俊) said. “Online data also told us that Taiwan customers value local flavors and a food sensation.”
Photo courtesy of Pizza Hut Taiwan
It is not the first time Taiwan has seen an unconventional blend of Western and local ingredients. In 2019, Domino’s Pizza Inc created the boba — a pizza served with sweet tapioca pearls in homage to the popular bubble milk tea.
The fusion stirred a buzz on social media and Pizza Hut came up with its own toppings, including ramen and spicy hot pot. It even made a pizza topped with durian — a thorny fruit with creamy custard-like flesh and a powerful odor.
The latest concoction coincided with growing demand for Western takeaways after the government imposed a nationwide level 3 COVID-19 alert on May 19. While the nation’s food and beverages sector suffered a near 40 percent slump in sales in June, US chains such as Pizza Hut, Domino’s and KFC outperformed with a 3.6 percent rise, data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed.
“During the lockdown, consumers preferred meals that are clean, convenient and cheap,” said Ken Chen (程開佑), cofounder of iCHEF, a Taipei-based company that provides analytical marketing for Taiwan’s food and beverages industry. “That all worked in favor for American fast food chains.”
The flurry of demand for nontraditional pizzas also reflects the tendency of Taiwanese to follow trends, said Sungjun Park, an assistant professor at National Chengchi University’s business administration department.
“Taiwan’s Generation Z are constantly looking for attention-grabbing materials to post on Instagram,” he said.
Yum! Brands Inc, which franchises Pizza Hut, KFC and Taco Bell in more than 150 countries and territories worldwide, has followed an “adopt and adapt” strategy, also known as “localization,” in several Asian nations. South Korea has the bulgogi pizza with marinaded BBQ beef; India has butter chicken; while Japan has experimented with natto — a traditional food made from fermented soybeans.
“When international chains want to stabilize market power in a foreign location, this is the go-to method,” Hong Kong-based Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Angela Hanlee said.
The data-generated approach seems to have worked in Taiwan. The latest invention — featuring a street delicacy made of sticky rice and pig’s blood, and preserved eggs — broke Pizza Hut’s previous sales record set by the durian pizza in 2019, Leung said.
One was bought every eight seconds and the creation was sold out just four days after the launch in late June, the company said.
Like previous toppings, it aksi swiftly trended on social media.
Aaron Yan (炎亞綸), a popular Taiwanese singer and actor, with more than 1.6 million followers on Facebook, said in a post the pizza was delicious.
Sandra Chuang, a Twitter user in Taichung, said it was a “very Taiwanese taste.”
“Every now and then, Taiwanese will go crazy over a new popular, well-talked about food,” said Clarissa Wei (瀏覽者), a writer and film maker focusing on food and culture. “Taste does not seem to be their top priority.”
That seemed to be the case for Henry Hung, who works in the information-technology industry in Taipei and turned to Pizza Hut’s latest creation to spice up an “online hangout” with friends during lockdown.
“I only bought the pig’s blood pizza out of curiosity and the temptation to try something weird and new,” he said.
While the “overall taste was acceptable and flavors were balanced,” Hung said he would not order it again.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last