Canadian chain rolls out world-first pizza subscription service

Remedios Lucio

16th Sep 2020

Canadian fast-food chain General Assembly Pizza has launched what it claims is the world’s first online pizza subscription service.

The new General Assembly Pizza offer includes free delivery if consumers buy boxes of four, six, eight or 10 pizza. Launched in Toronto, the service will expand across Ontario next year.

The pizzas will be delivered to subscribers in a temperature controlled recyclable boxes. The company is also implementing contactless delivery and it has a package-tracking service.

The DTC subscription model banks on the pizza company’s premium frozen pizza line this spring, which was created by General Assembly Pizza executive chef Curt Martin. It offers six 100-per-cent naturally-leavened pizzas which consumers can put in the oven at home. He also created new plant-based pizza, Garden Smash, which is available only via subscription.

General Assembly Pizza founder and CEO Ali Khan Lalani said that e-commerce is the next step for the company as it ventures into packaged goods, dine-in, take-away, delivery partnerships and a catering service complete with a wood-burning mobile pizza oven.

“Since opening our doors in 2017, we have pushed for the best guest-experience possible—that’s why our dough is 100-per-cent naturally leavened, that is why we have a purpose-built 400-square-foot pick-up and delivery area, and that is why we’re launching a direct-to-consumer subscription-based e-commerce platform today,” he said.

“In 2020, providing the best guest experience means General Assembly Pizza has to be more than a restaurant. I’m proud to say that after almost six months of planning, many roadblocks and countless pivots — all while maintaining our day-to-day restaurant operations amidst a pandemic — we have done it. Along the way, we’ve connected more than ever with our community, and we look forward to bringing a little of that original GA guest experience back into their day-to-day lives, at home.”

“Food quality and forward thinking is what drives our team. Whether it’s made-to-order or frozen, our pizza is entirely handmade, chef-prepped and fired in our hand-built, made-in-Italy brick ovens,” Martin added.