The Best Pizza Trivia & Fun Facts

28 Fun Pizza Facts & Quirky Stats

Pepperoni is American’s favorite topping, with over 36 percent of all orders featuring this meat topping.
Although there is no exact record of the first time pepperoni was used on a pizza, it became popular between 1930 and 1950.
About 252 million pounds of pepperoni are consumed on pizzas each year.
When asked to choose from a list of common pizza toppings, anchovies are always ranked last as people’s favorites.
Manufacturers’ sales of pizza is almost $32 billion each year.
The U.S. per capita consumption of mozzarella cheese is almost 11 pounds.
Meat is found on about 62 percent of all pizzas consumed.
The top 5 pizza styles in the U.S. are New York, traditional, American, Sicilian, Deep Dish, and Neapolitan.
Women are twice as likely as men to order a vegetarian pizza.
In the U.S., there are about 350 slices of pizza eaten each second.
There are over 73,000 pizzerias in the United States. Independent pizza chains make up 65 percent of that total.
Pizzerias comprise almost eight percent of all U.S. restaurants.
Per capita, Iowa has the most pizza stores per person, with 4.13 per 10,000 residents. Mississippi has the lowest, with only 2.41 per 10,000 people.
Americans eat an average of 46 slices of pizza a year.
There are about 3 billion pizzas sold each year in the U.S. and over 5 billion pizzas sold worldwide each year.
When asked, most kids between the ages of 3 to 11 will list pizza as their favorite food.
Pizza Hut is the largest seller of pizzas in the world. They have more than 12,000 restaurants and delivery locations worldwide. In the United States, they hold 17 percent of the pizza sales market.
Domino’s Pizza delivers the most pizzas in the world.
In the United States, 83 percent of pizzerias offer delivery and 91 percent offer take-out.
Among independent pizza operations, 61 percent serve alcohol.
A pizza was delivered to the International Space Station in 2001, making it the first pizza eaten in space.
Sixty-one percent of the American population prefers regular thin crust pizza. Eleven percent choose extra thin.
Thick crust and deep dish pizza are tied for the second most popular type of pizza preferred, with 14% for each.
More pizza is consumed during Super Bowl week than any other week of the year.
California has the most pizzerias in the U.S., followed by New York and Texas.
Pizza is the number two item in food service, after hamburgers.
Pizza is the number two item in take-out food, after chicken.
In 1905, Lombardi’s became the first officially licensed pizzeria in the United States.