Papa John’s International sits in an interesting niche in the $93 billion global fast food pizza market (Euromonitor), with its “better ingredients, better pizza” mantra reflecting a commitment to supposedly higher quality products than those of its larger peers, Domino’s and Pizza Hut with wide moats. This positioning limits Papa John’s ability to use discounting in times of strong competitive pressure, but also exposes it to a slightly wealthier customer base, theoretically reducing the cyclicality of the company’s revenues. After a few quarters of underperformance relative to its larger value-focused competitors, we’re skeptical of the latter, but note that pizza’s position as the cheapest option for feeding a family is trending to benefit the subsector during periods of pressure.