Just lately, I spoke to a reporter from USA At this time. He requested me about pizza’s place within the fast-food hierarchy. When he picked up the cellphone to name me, I doubt he anticipated such an animated and robust response to what appeared like a easy, harmless query. I assume you might say I had a “cleaning soap field” second.
A number of days later, my writer, Pete Lachapelle, had Matt McClellan on his cellphone. Matt is sick and uninterested in pizza’s “junk meals” fame. As probably the most extremely customizable dish in all of foodservice, pizza may be as wholesome or suicidal because the buyer needs it to be. Matt, who owns a pizzeria in St. Petersburg, Florida, is on a mission to show that pizza can have well being benefi ts if consumed as a part of a well-balanced weight loss plan. He’s illustrating his level by biking up the East Coast. The truth is, he’s scheduled to finish his Tour de Pizza this month. Learn extra about it within the August subject of Pizza At this time.
However that’s one other story. Again to the cellphone name. As Pete and I talked to Matt, he used the dreaded ‘F’ phrase not as soon as, however twice. This obtained the 2 of us a bit fired up once more. You see, we will deal with the so-called ‘F-bomb’ all day lengthy. We’re not precisely saints. However this explicit ‘F’ phrase — quick meals — is much worse. (Okay, ‘quick meals’ is definitely a two-word phrase, however let’s not get slowed down by trivialities right here).
As Pete and I talked, we started to understand that the sorely misplaced fast-food designation has grow to be pizza’s proverbial albatross.
Why shouldn’t pizza be lumped in with quick meals, the uninitiated may ask? First, let’s simply take the definition of “quick meals.” Discover that essential first phrase … quick? What’s quick about pizza? Nothing.
You awoke this morning and made contemporary dough. The method took time. The dough is now proofing and growing older, which permits it to slowly develop spectacular taste to be used not immediately, however tomorrow — or possibly even the following day.
Your prep crew spent a lot of the morning slicing, slicing and dicing contemporary greens.
When a buyer locations an order, you’ll then begin the method of getting ready their meal to their particular needs. You’ll gown that dough, to order, with sauce, cheese, meats and greens. You’ll then place the shopper’s pizza within the oven, the place it will likely be fresh-baked. All the course of, from order origination to achievement, will take 15-20 minutes. Let’s evaluate this to an expertise at a fast-food outlet.
The shopper will pull as much as a drive-thru speaker.
They are going to take a look at a pre-determined listing of meals and select a quantity.
Thirty seconds later the shopper can pay at a window and be handed a bag of meals that was pre-cooked and sitting beneath heaters. See any similarities between pizza and quick meals? I positive don’t.
Sadly, pizza suffers from a merciless twist in identification, one through which its key strengths have labored not for the class, however in opposition to it. Give it some thought for a second: What’s one in every of your largest promoting factors? Pizza offers distinctive worth, proper? It’s each cheap and scrumptious. Can’t go unsuitable with that equation.
Pizza can be environment friendly — it pleases nearly everybody, and it’s designed to be eaten by households or teams. That $10 pizza feeds 2-3 folks. That equates to $3.33-$5 an individual. That falls throughout the worth vary of the fast-food class, which is rife with $1 objects.
I’ll take that $3 slice over the $1 burger each day of the week. As will most individuals. So get on the market and inform them in regards to the time and care you set into getting ready a contemporary, made-to-order product that’s healthful and scrumptious. Whereas it’s not information to you, it will likely be to them.
Finest,
Jeremy White, editor-in-chief
jwhite@www.pizzatoday.com
