Pizza getting second look
WASHINGTON | Hold the pepperoni. The government wants to drop decades-old rules that dictate the ingredients of frozen pizzas, down to how much meat, sausage or pepperoni must be in the toppings. Kraft and other pizza makers say the rules prevent them from lowering the fat content or trying out new sauces or ethnic styles.
Under the Agriculture Department’s regulations, a meat pizza must have a crust, cheese, a tomato-based sauce and at least 10 percent to 12 percent meat by weight. A 12-inch pepperoni would typically have about 20 pepperoni slices.
The rules, known as standards of identity, were intended in part to promote consumption of meat and cheese, said consumer advocate Carol Tucker Foreman, who oversaw the department’s food regulation during the Carter administration. ‘‘That doesn’t make sense in today’s society,’’ she said.
There are similar identity standards for a variety of other processed products, including stew and chili. The department will take public comment until Jan. 2 on its proposal to eliminate the pizza standards. Without those rules, a meat or sausage pizza could have as little as 2 percent meat. That’s the minimum content for anything labeled as a meat product.
Restaurant and delivery pizzas are exempt from the rules. And under the federal government’s system for regulating food, USDA’s regulations also don’t apply to vegetable or cheese pizzas. Meatless products fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration, which has no identity standards for pizza.
Frozen pizza is a booming business thanks to the development of self-rising dough. Kraft Foods, maker of DiGiorno and Tombstone brands, has seen its pizza sales balloon from $190 million to $1 billion annually over the past decade. But frozen pizza still only accounts for a fraction of the $30 billion in total U.S. pizza sales.
USDA’s rules ‘‘are outdated. The frozen pizza industry has changed dramatically,’’ said Tony Mantuano, chef at Chicago’s Spiaggia restaurant and a consultant to Schwan’s Sales Enterprises, maker of Freschetta pizza.
‘‘One of our most popular pizzas is a pizza that has duck sausage and goat cheese. There’s no tomato sauce. There’s no mozzarella.’’ His definition of a pizza: ‘‘It has to have a great crust. What you put on top is what tastes good and what people like to eat. That’s it.’’
If USDA drops its rules, pizza makers can cut out some of the meat and experiment with toppings such as pesto or alfredo sauce, said Jaye Neagle, senior director of research and development for Kraft’s pizza division.
One slice of DiGiorno Three Meat pizza has 8 grams of saturated fat, 40 percent of the recommended daily limit, nearly twice as much as a slice of DiGiorno’s vegetable pizza. A Freschetta pepperoni has 7 grams of saturated fat. ‘‘People do want meat, they just want a product that’s lower fat,’’ said Foreman, director of the Consumer Federation of America’s Food Policy Institute.
A cynical consumer might wonder whether the pizza makers real motive in seeking to get rid of the meat standard is to pad their profits, not trim Americans’ waistlines. Not so, say industry officials.
Consumers won’t buy what they don’t like, said Robert Garfield, executive director of the National Frozen Pizza Institute. ‘‘These companies aren’t looking for a one-shot deal. They’re looking for customers who will try their product and try again.’’