Pizza Innovation – Think Outside the Pizza Box
23 March 2022

Pizza Innovation – Think Outside the Pizza Box

While pizza still is very trendy, consumers are more and more interested in new pizza styles and formats. Pizza innovation is your way to always develop your skills and excite your customers. Get the most popular trends, pizza innovation ideas, and learn the art of re-thinking pizza styles here.

Rethinking pizza formats

Pizza is probably the most versatile dish on the planet. While many pizza makers stick to the basics with circular shape, savoury flavours and lots of cheese, others challenge the format to suit new occasions. Pizza innovation is a game changer for the pizza chefs who know how to do it right.

We’ve gathered some of the biggest pizza trends and pizza innovation ideas here on the page, so you can get the best inspiration to re-think the pizza format.

… And for dessert, pizza!

Sweet and fruity dessert pizzas are taking over menus all over the world. Ranging from sweet toppings to all-out dessert pizzas can be made on regular pizza dough or a cookie-based crust.

As for toppings – anything goes: cookies, nuts, jam, fruit, berries, caramel, chocolate, dates, marshmallows, mascarpone, cream cheese, cinnamon, apples – whatever you desire, just pick your poison.

See recipe for dessert pizza

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Dessert pizza with sweet toppings

Pizza-by-the-inch

Most pizza places, pizzas come in fixed sizes. However, a new pizza concept is popping up around the world, where you can decide exactly how much pizza you want down to the inch or centimetre.

The pizzas are typically formed in a rectangular shape, topped with different ingredients, and sliced to your wishes. And in a time where everything is customizable, pizza-by-the-inch really taps into the zeitgeist. This pizza innovation also introduces a different business model into the realm of pizza making – giving you more options to create revenue and attract new customers.

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Rectangular-shaped pizza - ideal for "pizza-by-the-inch" concept

Snack Attack

Using pizza innovation as a tool to develop new takes on how we consume pizza is also a great idea. Using in-house ingredients, bite-sized pizza snacks can be a great addition to the bar menu, a snackable appetiser, or an easy on-the-go offering.

For a savoury option, try a garlic-parmesan snack or go sweet with delicious cinnamon sugar bites.

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Snack-sized pizzas

It’s a wrap

Easy-to-handle pizza wraps and sandwiches are also becoming increasingly more popular and adding to the pizza innovation. The new pizza styles are typically made with the house dough and filled with sauce and toppings.

Some go pita-style, others roll slices and mini-pizzas like fajitas. In some markets, pizza chains offer a regular pizza sandwich: sauce and toppings between two slices of baked pizza crust.

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Wrapped "stromboli" pizza

Cheeses for innovative pizza styles

Whether you’re really into all the aspects of pizza innovation, or just getting started, one of the most important elements is still picking the right cheese for your innovative pizza creation. We've selected a few of our best cheeses for innovative pizza styles below.

Key benefits:

  • Once cooked it resembles softer mozzarella such as buffalo, burrata and fior di latte
  • Low moisture content allows the pizza to be cooked more evenly, giving a crispy base and a golden crust
  • A 10x10mm cut size is making it the perfect solution for operators who use super-hot pizza ovens

Key benefits:

  • Perfect for delivery, retaining opacity as its transported from kitchen to consumer
  • A 4x4x20mm cut size means more stretch on the cheese once cooked
  • Retention of colour/opacity means you don’t need to overload with cheese to achieve the desired result on delivery

Want more pizza inspiration?

If you want to dive a little deeper into the world of pizza innovation, you’ll find a lot of inspiration in our guide "Top Pizza Trends". Download the guide below, and learn how to innovate the pizza game.

Download Guide

Top pizza trends