Pizza Hut’s largest franchisee, Overland Park-based NPC International Inc., saw first-quarter sales cool by 5 percent, but the company managed to edge up its earnings.
Total sales for the 13 weeks that ended March 29 came in at $251.13 million. Profits, meanwhile, amounted to $9.5 million, up less than 1 percent from $9.46 million during the same quarter a year earlier.
Sales in stores that had been open at least a year declined by 4.7 percent, unable to stand up to the 10.2 percent increase of a year earlier, during the launch of Pizza Hut’s popular $10 Any Pizza promotion.