FOOD NEWS
Pizza Boxes Are Once Again Under Intense Scrutiny
By Elaina Friedman
It’s hard to find a takeout pizza customer that spends much time examining their pizza or the box it came in before hungrily diving into their first bite, but Saahil Desai from The Atlantic is the exception. Desai admits that to-go pies don’t hit the same anymore, and the boxes they come in are the reason why.
According to the owner and namesake of Andrew Bellucci’s Pizzeria in New York City, putting hot pizza in a box accelerates its degradation process, as the heat trapped by pizza boxes causes the pizza dough to give in to excess moisture caused by steam. Desai writes that these pizzas tend to have a “limp sogginess” and “a rubbery grossness to the cheese.”
While Domino’s attempted to make boxes that let steam escape freely, the VENTiT pizza box design takes it one step further. Invented by Scott Wiener of Scott’s Pizza Tours, the VENTiT comes with vents in the middle and inner layers of cardboard that are fused with the outer layer to let steam escape without touching the pizza and making it soggy.