Afterall, Meij kicked off his career back in 1987 as a pizza delivery driver for the now defunct Sylvio’s Dial-a-Pizza in Redcliffe, the company that pioneered home delivery in Australia. Meij was studying to be a teacher at the time.

Domino’s even boasts that delivery is its superpower.

But apparently pizza delivery isn’t what it used to be and Meij is tipping a looming wage breakout to attract drivers, which he intends to counter through efficiencies.

While visiting the exceptionally fast-growing Domino’s business in Japan, Meij said the world was in the Age of Delivery where a lot of what would be sold in retail over the next decade would be delivered.

“(But) there are not enough people who want to deliver the number of packages that are in that demand,” he said.

“When we think about that there will be wage inflation way beyond what governments put in place because when there is a shortage in market supply costs rise.

“So we want to do more deliveries per hour than anybody in this business so that we can afford to pay more and we can be the industry leader where we are still accessing drivers, we’re doing that economically and it will be one of the key differentiators.

“The most efficient company will win in the coming decade.”

Not surprisingly, there are trials for pizza delivery by drone in New Zealand and in the US regulators last year approved deliveries with drones that don’t require hands-on piloting, an issue that had delayed its implementation there. The battery life and the power capacity of drones was also an issue.

In Australia, Roll’d Vietnamese and Google subsidiary Wing deliver food with drones in Logan and Canberra. Wing has claimed the drones reduce emissions by 99 per cent compared with car delivery.

Domino’s biggest shareholder, Jack Cowin, has also previously raised concerns about the lack of drivers over the coming decade.

Meij also tipped Japan would soon take over as the profit driver for Domino’s.

“(Japan) is not yet the most profitable business. Australia is still the most profitable in quantum of Australian dollars, but there is no doubt the Japanese business will exceed the Australian numbers just by the sheer growth and scale,” he said.

“Japan is really important. It’s going to be in the next decade the biggest business unit for all of DPE. It’s going to be very efficient and that’s one of the things to need to do.

“I expect we will be adding 100 stores a year approximately over the next decade.”