After all, the ability to innovate is fundamental in a market that must always keep pace with emerging trends in food. Here, then, is the debut of the Roncadin air fryer pizza, the relaunch of the mini Buitoni formats as a tasty and quick snack, the expansion of the pinsa offer (which is growing in double figures) and the limited edition for the twentieth anniversary of the Pizza Ristorante brand, with its 16 million pizzas sold in one year in Italy.
Ambassador for Italian ingredients
Pizza is therefore increasingly a pillar of the national food economy as a powerful global driver of Made in Italy. Especially in countries such as France, Austria and Switzerland, where a third of citizens consider it the icon of Italian cuisine, according to a recent report by Roberta Garibaldi, president of the Italian Food and Wine Tourism Association (Aite).
Even online, pizza represents the first and most immediate point of contact with the Italian spirit as ‘pizzeria’ is the most searched term on the web in the US, UK, Germany, France and Spain, with over 4 million monthly searches, reveals Real Italian Restaurants (a digital platform that certifies the authenticity of Italian restaurants abroad).
Globally, the pizza market exceeds $150 billion and is projected to exceed $409 billion by 3032, with expected growth at a compound annual rate (CAGR) of 5.4%, estimates Fortune Business Inside. The lion’s share is in the US, with more than 38% of the business, but Italy also plays an important role, as it concentrates 52.3% of the amount of pizza consumed away from home in the five major European markets surveyed by Circana Crest.
“Intermediate consumption accounts for about 40% of the turnover of pizzerias in Italy,” emphasises Sbraga, “We are talking about at least six billion in allied industries, between suppliers of services and ingredients. And if up to now this has been fertile ground for producers of flour, dairy products and tomato preserves – Anicav right on the occasion of Pizza Day points out that the value of the 200 million kg of red preserves used in Italian pizzerias is over 250 million – now other food sectors have also started to invest in the field. These include brands of anchovies and cured meats (including fine ones such as culatello), which have seen gourmet pizza as an effective vehicle for promoting their brand.
Dining and Cooking