Crafted Flatzz are sized and priced perfectly for a grownup lunch option. | Photos courtesy of Pizza Hut.
There is a hack that happens in the back of house in Pizza Huts every day, where employees take the chain’s personal pan pizza dough disc and stretch it into a thinner crust for lunch.
That hack helped spark the idea for Crafted Flatzz, the new personal, artisan-style pizzas the Plano, Texas-based chain launched last month.
“We had already been messing around with this idea, because we wanted something lighter but personal size that we could put a lot of toppings on for the money and offer at a good value,” said Rachel Antalek, global chief innovation officer for Pizza Hut. “When we started, we were aiming for an individual fancy pizza that costs $5.” Consumers are in a really difficult spot right now and a full-size pizza may not be in the budget, she added.
The team also worked very hard to make sure that margins stayed intact for franchisees at the $5 price point.
Within six months, Antalek and her team had developed the line of Crafted Flatzz with elevated, more “grownup” toppings. Five made their debut in the U.S. in August, with 20 more slated to roll out to Pizza Huts around the world.
It starts with the dough
“We have lots of different dough platforms at Pizza Hut and have been in the individual occasion with our Personal Pan Pizza and Melts, so we started with the dough as the chassis,” said Antalek. She asked her team to stretch the personal pizza dough into a different shape, giving them some guardrails. The oval shape was the winner, “and now we had a canvas and could start playing with toppings,” she said.
Like the dough, many of the toppings were already in house. Three of the Crafted Flatzz cross-utilize ingredients in Pizza Hut’s pantry and two of the recipes bring in new SKUs.
“We had been working on a pickle pizza, but wanted to give it a more mainstream execution, with a topping of crispy chicken and pickle ranch. So we brought in the crispy chicken and the pickle ranch and created the Chicken Bacon Ranch Crafted Flatzz,” said Antalek. This one is rounded out with mozzarella and Parmesan oregano seasoning.
Nashville Hot Chicken is a new flavor profile for Pizza Hut.
Once the crispy chicken was in, she sourced Nashville hot seasoning to create the Nashville Hot Chicken variation. It’s also drizzled with pickle ranch, then topped with onions and fresh mozzarella. The individual platform works really well with this flavor profile. “Sometimes a customer will think ‘I don’t know if the whole family is going to like a big pizza with Nashville hot topping, so I’ll order it just for me.’ For $5, people will take a risk,” Antalek said.
The other three U.S. variations are The Ultimate, with pepperoni, Italian sausage, caramelized onions, roasted peppers, tomatoes, marinara and mozzarella; Three Cheese, featuring mozzarella, Romano, Parmesan and oregano on sweet marinara; and Pepperoni Duo topped with classic and crisp cup-style pepperoni over mozzarella and marinara with a savory cheese blend seasoning.
Portable flavor
Crafted Flatzz are geared to adults who may find themselves in solo dining situations. “One fun fact that I love to throw out is that even at dinner, about 25% of Americans eat their meal alone,” said Antalek. That’s true, even if they live in households with others.
During the R&D process, portability was not one of the “guardrails” for Crafted Flatzz but evolved naturally. “We didn’t originally say ‘let’s make it portable,’ but that was a happy byproduct,” she added. “It’s the one pizza that’s easy to put in your car and eat while you’re driving.” Crafted Flatzz are even trending on TikTok as “the secret car pizza,” she noticed.
Five Crafted Flatzz launched the new platform in the U.S.
Crafted Flatzz are now on the menu at Pizza Hut’s 5,000-plus U.S. locations and are gradually rolling out internationally in country-specific flavors throughout the fall and into 2026. So far, there are eight global variations, including Pesto Veggie with Balsamic Drizzle in the U.K., Korean BBQ in Taiwan and Tandoori Chicken with mango chutney in India.
“We had people submitting recipes from all over the globe, including our franchisees,” said Antalek. “The eight that are forming the foundation of our global core recipes were tested at global locations and validated by consumers.”
Finding the right fit for the platform
It’s possible that Pizza Hut will bring some of the international winners into the U.S. pipeline, plus there are lots of other possibilities waiting in the wings.
“We have some great ingredients on our make table now, including that pesto drizzle,” she said. “We have caramelized onions, fire-roasted peppers and chopped fresh garlic, and we really haven’t played with everything on this platform yet.”
Many topping ingredients pair with the Crafted Flatzz dough, and the toughest part was deciding which to menu first, said Antalek. But fresh vegetables didn’t work as well as roasted veggies on the thinner dough. “Fresh vegetables leach a lot of moisture and the dough is not as robust and doesn’t hold up to a bunch of moisture,” she added. “You can’t go too heavy on those kind of toppings.” Too many tomatoes and fresh green peppers, for example, made the dough too saucy, and that wasn’t a good experience texture-wise.
Crafted Flatzz give Pizza Hut customers another lunchtime option—an increasing desire for the pizza consumer. Last year, the pizza chain launched a hot box that could hold either a Personal Pan Pizza or a Melt with a side of wings or fries. “That was a huge learning for us,” said Antalek. “There are plenty of people out there during the daytime that would really enjoy a pizza but they are often eating by themselves.” Smaller, portable pizzas are a solution.
And diners want more chicken. Pizza Hut has a lot of meat toppings, but consumers are eating differently, and the new crispy chicken will definitely see more action. September is National Chicken Month, and Pizza Hut tied into it with a promotion for its Nashville Hot Chicken and Chicken Bacon Ranch Crafted Flatzz for online orders.
As far as what’s next, beverages are in the spotlight. “A delivered beverage in a delivery environment is important to the experience, and so it’s something we’re thinking about more,” said Antalek.
