It’s not every day that you learn your technology helped a company achieve their highest sales in company history. But that is the story of Kong and Papa John’s. 

I have always loved Papa John’s for their delicious pizza made with fresh ingredients, but what I also think of is their (incredibly addictive) Special Garlic Dipping Sauce. What I learned when Papa John’s became a Kong customer is that this is no mistake; Papa John’s puts menu innovation at the heart of their business strategy and is rapidly introducing new menu items all the time. Delicious food is half the battle – the other half is innovating on consumer digital experience to meet customers where they are and offer seamless ordering experiences. 

This is where an API strategy for partner integrations became key for Papa John’s. The company decided an important channel for getting products to customers was via third-party aggregators offering delivery services. As these partner integrations scaled up, adding a connectivity platform to its tech stack to provide a single access point for partners was a no-brainer.

Papa John’s was the first pizza company to fully integrate no-contact delivery into its digital channels. Partner API integrations to third-party delivery providers were a critical enabler for this business innovation that delivered record sales.

Today, Papa John’s Commerce Platform Team makes use of Kong Enterprise to focus on feature development and delivering business value rapidly, rather than partner-specific administrative controls. This means engineering teams are able to focus on providing business value rather than setting up policies and pipelines. Partner integrations that used to take Papa John’s two to three weeks of developer time can now be done in a week.

Thanks to this digital transformation, Papa John’s was prepared in times of COVID to quickly pivot to meet shifting customer demand. CEO Rob Lynch shared that Papa John’s was the first pizza company to fully integrate no-contact delivery into its digital channels and that the company had achieved its best month of sales in its 35-year history. I am proud to welcome Papa John’s to the Kong family, congratulate the team for these historic results and am excited to see what innovations they bring to market next! To learn more, read the full case study about Papa John’s and Kong here.