The success story of Donatos Pizza started 38 years ago, with a small pizza restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. The American restaurant chain now has over 140 outlets in six States: Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and, of course, Ohio.

In addition to its present and future kitchen installation projects, Franke has also been awarded another very interesting – and particularly challenging – contract from Donatos. The pizza chain has decided to refit all its kitchens to change over to a process based on a failsafe refrigeration cycle, and has contracted Franke to implement the change. Direct impacts of this major project include changes to the preparation cycle and a new production process. In addition to its traditional thin-base pizza range, Donatos can now just as easily produce thick-crust pizzas, because the new process enables Donatos to control the quantity of dough produced according to the requirements for each customer order. This has cut down on waste, which in turn is reflected in cost savings. According to the size of the restaurant, the alterations are completed in anything from one to three days. The work is generally done at night, so the restaurant can keep operating during the day. Almost 70 restaurants have been refitted since January, with another 30 planned for fall.