food and what the business’ focus is in the next year. Inside Retail: How does the New Zealand market differ from Australia?  Cameron Toomey: There are a lot of similarities between the customers. For one, everyone wants pizza delivered as quickly as possible.  But, there’s one thing that is different with New Zealand: when we look around the world, New Zealand is probably one of the bigger markets for pick up. Other markets around the world are heavily into delivery and have a smaller pick up business, whereas New Zealand’s the opposite.  It’s changing a little, and New Zealanders are starting to get on board with delivery. We saw that even before Covid, but the pandemic spurred that along.  Apart from that, New Zealand customers really do like buying local and supporting local. Even though we’re an international brand, we’re made up of individual store owners that live in the community, and one of the things we do focus on is trying to boost that message within the community.  So now our local franchisors do what we call ‘dough raises’ where the store raises money for local schools or local charities through pizza sales throughout the week. And our preference is always to source ingredients locally. We like to support the local farmers and produce growers.  IR: How does operating logistically differ in New Zealand to Australia?  CT: The supply chain is pretty similar, but Australia is more spread out and there are a lot more stores, so one of the things that we focus on is getting more kitchens closer to customers [in New Zealand].  So instead of one store trying to deliver to as big a territory as possible, we try to get more stores on the ground closer to the customer so that we can deliver faster. When you look at delivery, the biggest impact on the quality of that pizza is the time that it takes between coming out of the oven and getting into the customers’ hands.  One of the things that we have is a strategy called 3Ten, which is all about getting pizza picked up in three minutes and delivered in under 10 minutes. It’s one of the things that just started a year ago now. IR: How do you think the pandemic has changed the QSR customer?  CT: I think delivery has had a big impact. It’s one of the things that we’ve been looking at for a few years. We’re in what we call the ‘age of delivery’.  Everybody’s moving to delivery no matter what [kind of retailer they are]. I think the pandemic has sped up that journey, and I think a lot of people that hadn’t used delivery to get their pizza or their groceries now have tried it out, and realise how much time and energy is saved. Customers are [also] expecting that a business can change and adapt quickly to whatever is happening in the current environment. IR: Can you tell me about what Domino’s is doing in the next year? CT: One of the exciting things that we’re looking to launch later on this year is drone delivery, through a partnership with our drone partner SkyDrop. I think drone delivery is something that we see as being an avenue to deliver pizzas into the future. We’re always going to have delivery drivers in our stores, but we see drone deliveries as being able to supplement our fleet and we’re always looking into the future as to what we can do to get pizzas to customers hotter, quicker, and faster.  We’re really working on our ESG [environmental, social and governance] space this year, and looking to see what we can do to be a more responsible business. For example, we’ve been partnering for the last couple of years with Kiwi electric motorbike company UBCO, and we’re looking to roll out more of those bikes as a more efficient, more environmentally-friendly delivery vehicle.  Also, we’re putting a lot of focus into this year on our employee development.  Everybody’s talking about how tough it is to get employees and to keep employees, and we see Domino’s as a people business: we sell pizzas but the keys to our business is our people. As part of that, we’re launching a program which will help develop employees from the minute they walk in the store as a driver, right through to being a franchisee or joining the head office. We want to change the way people see working at Domino’s. Yes, it’s a great after-school or after-hours job, but it can also be a career.