Dodo Pizza


Dodo Pizza is a Russian pizza chain founded in 2011 in Syktyvkar, Russia and headquartered in Dubai, UAE. Operating under the umbrella of QSR group Dodo Brands, the company has more than 1580 restaurants in 26 countries across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Operations

Ovchinnikov states that the company views itself as an IT-driven retail company based on the principle of transparency. Dodo Pizza uses a cloud-based system known as Dodo IS that collects and processes operations data, reports real-time business analytics, and helps kitchen and delivery staff to be more efficient by allowing for more informed decision-making.

History

In 2014, the company ran the largest crowdfunding initiative in Russia to date, raising over $2 million from 180 private investors. Dodo also made headlines from Washington to Tokyo with what it billed as the world's first commercial delivery of pizzas by drone, to customers in the central square in Syktyvkar.
In September 2018, Fyodor Ovchinnikov announced that the chain would grow its IT team from 60 to 250 developers in two years, and by October 2019, Dodo Pizza has doubled it.
According to the chain's public Top Pizza Shop Sales Ranking, the best-performing Dodo Pizza store in Novy Urengoy, Russia netted $166,086 in sales in March 2019.
In 2018, Dodo Pizza sold the franchise rights for Nigeria to Quality Foods Africa, the same group of British investors that brought Krispy Kreme to that continent's most populous country. The first 20 Dodos opened in October 2019 in Lagos.
In 2019, Dodo Pizza opened a cashless pizza store in China, its “primary market of the future” along with Britain. In November 2019, the company received GRLC Distinction Award for Innovation at Global Restaurant Leadership Conference in Singapore.
In 2019, the company planned to add 1,000 pizza shops in Europe, Asia and Africa over the next five years and to hit $500 million in network revenue by 2021 and $1 billion by 2024.
In April 2021, Ovchinnikov announced that Dodo Pizza would cease operations in China due to the company's rejection of the global business model, as well as due to difficulties encountered in the Chinese market, such as high competition, a complex consumer mentality, and an incorrectly chosen business model.
In 2022, the founder of the network announced that the network would leave United Kingdom which included 5 Dodo Pizza outlets. One of the reasons for the network's problems was the economic sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, but British branches had already experienced declines in turnover.
In 2023, the franchisor, DODO FRANCHISING LLC, achieved a financial result of 5.9 billion rubles in revenue and 756.8 million rubles in net profit. The number of establishments in accordance with the RosPatent register increased by 65 enterprises.
In 2025, the company moved its official headquarters from the British Virgin Islands to Kazakhstan.
In 2025, Dodo Pizza announced a master franchise agreement with the local company M&I Group to enter the Moroccan market. The deal provides for the opening of two initial restaurants in Rabat in 2026 and includes a long-term plan to establish 35 locations across the country by 2034.

Incidents

Drug trafficking incident

In 2018, news broke out about an opened criminal case about drug trafficking, after an employee discovered a stash of illegal narcotics in a Moscow Dodo Pizza restaurant. The founder insisted that it happened in a franchised restaurant, the single owner of which was Stanislav Semenov, who confirmed this information. Despite this, the founder agreed to go through interrogations as a witness. During one of the interrogations, it became apparent that a statement from Pronina for the FSB, in which is said that drugs are being trafficked through Latin America, which is why the owner travels abroad, and the operating restaurants abroad are just cover ups, but it was later found that the signature was faked. Later, the criminal case was resumed by the government's request. In the end, the case did not hurt the founder or the company, which continued operations.

Kidnapping of Vladimir Goretsky

According to the founder of the chain, in 2019, his business partner Vladimir Goretsky was lured into Latvia under the pretext of a meeting with an investor, and later kidnapped and held hostage, asking for a large sum. After figuring out his passwords, they took 3.6 million rubles, forced him to give another 900 thousand and stole his tech. Later, they forced him to sign blank pieces of paper and put fingerprints on a gun, threatening that in the case of a police report, "the gun will come up when needed". He also was forced to sign 32 million rubles of debt obligations..

Franchisee lawsuit

In 2021, Evgeny Tkachev, a Dodo franchisee, filed a lawsuit against the company, where he disputed the company's decision of removing his Yaroslavl pizzeria from the chain.