Pizzaexpress Profits Rise By 50%

PizzaExpress is to press ahead with its ambitious expansion plans after announcing an increase in interim profits of almost 50 per cent. The group, which now makes more than 10 million pizzas a year, operates a chain of 163 restaurants and plans to open more than 30 this year. David Page, chairman, said the group was negotiating on another 60 sites, and had identified a further 100 locations for new restaurants. The group was targeting the same type of customer as companies like Next, which had 400 High Street outlets. Overseas expansion is also proceeding apace. A restaurant in Delhi is serving 2,000 customers a week, and franchises will be opened in Moscow, Cairo and Paris before June. It is all a far cry from the groups modest origins in the mid 1960s, when PizzaExpress bought a