U.S. Pizza Sales Sizzle to $41 Billion in 2012

ROCKVILLE, Md. No doubt about it, Americans love pizza. So much so that sales at pizza restaurants will reach $36.1 billion in 2012, up 3.8% from 2011, and $4.91 billion at the retail level, for a grand total of just more than $41 billion in total sales, according to a new Packaged Facts report.

According to The Pizza Market in the U.S.: Foodservice and Retail" report, 97% of U.S. adults eat pizza, and 93% have purchased food from a pizza restaurant in the past 12 months. On a monthly basis, 27% get pizza through restaurant delivery/pickup (which translates to about 410 million pizzas a year), 26% through restaurant dine-in, and 24% from the frozen food cases.

On the restaurant side, although pizza restaurants are losing share to other restaurant cuisine formats, major pizza chains have continued to grow sales. On the retail side, private label continues to gain salesand steal sharein each of three mass-market pizza segments (frozen pizza, pizza products, and refrigerated pizza). On store shelves, category growth is primarily on the natural and organic front. Among the top 12 frozen pizza manufacturers, significant growth has come only from Newman's Own and Amy's Kitchen.

The report notes food consumption has clearly trended toward healthier options and home-based cost savings, which can come at the expense of pizza. According to David Sprinkle, the publisher of Packaged Facts, the main message to pizza purveyors is evident: enhance the overall healthfulness of your pizza, and experiment with options providing more clear-cut healthfulness without sacrificing taste.

Menu trends reveal additional cuisine-driven growth opportunities, including push more mileage out of fusion cuisine; use pizza to mainstream a wider variety of leaner proteins; leverage vegetable variety; up the sophistication ante through premium and more exotic natural cheeses and sauce experimentation; and exploit the on-the-go innovation potential of the breakfast daypart.