The next Pizza Hut pizza that arrives at your door should be hotter -- up to 15 degrees hotter.
That's the promise the chain made on Tuesday when it announced a brand-new delivery system that will keep its pizzas piping hot in transit.
How? With a pouch made of high-tech insulation and a " re-engineered pizza box."
Why? Because people love hot pizza.
"What consumers want more than anything else is a hot pizza," said Zipporah Allen, vice president of marketing at Pizza Hut.
There's more. Customers who order a pie between now and the end of October -- and want to feel as toasty as a hot pizza -- will be entered to win a "Pizza Parka" made out of the sames materials used to make Pizza Hut's new delivery pouch.
The company said it has spent more than two years examining the "delivery ecosystem," which includes the pizza box, the pizza box pouch and delivery from the locations.
This is not the first upgrade it's made to that ecosystem.
Over the summer, the pizza purveyor said it planned to hire 14,000 new drivers this year for permanent positions. Nearly 7,000 have been hired so far, the company said. It's also put into place a new algorithm designed to improve delivery service from Pizza Hut's 6,300 locations.
At the beginning of the year, the chain said it would add up to 11,000 permanent pizza makers, delivery drivers, managers and servers in the U.S. ahead of Super Bowl Sunday.
Pizza Hut isn't the only one upping its delivery game. Domino's Pizza partnered with Ford in August to start testing out self-driving delivery cars, each of which comes equipped with an oven.
Pizza Hut is owned by Yum! Brands, which is also the parent company of KFC and Taco Bell.
Though Yum! is doing well -- its stock has spiked by more than 20% this year -- Pizza Hut is a weak link. The brand's same-store sales fell by 3% in the first quarter of 2017 and 1% in the second.
In May, Yum! entered into a $130 million transformation agreement with Pizza Hut franchisees to help boost the brand.
At Taco Bell and KFC, same-store sales went up in both quarters.
