Sal's Pizza Review

First, we randomized the pizza places that we ordered from to avoid bias in the sample. Our randomization process generated three pizza spots out of a list of 12: Mister P’s Pizza, Trio’s Tomato Pie, and Luigi’s Pizzarama II. We made sure to order the same size and kind of pizza to avoid any confounding variables; specifically, we ordered a 16-inch, plain pizza from each respective pizzeria. To avoid recency or any temporal bias, we ordered each pizza to be delivered at the same time. 

Once the pizzas were delivered, we first placed them all next to each other to compare the delivery medium or, as some say, the pizza box. The Trio’s box showed a pizzeria on what looked to be an Italian side street embodying its more traditional, non-commercialized vibe; they didn’t even display their name on the box, because, for them, it's not about marketing or selling more, it's just about the pizza! Luigi’s Pizzarama II box was quite the opposite as they opted to only display practical elements like their name, address, hours of operation, phone number, etc; this represents their transactional philosophy of pizza and pizza delivery. Mister P’s Pizza box showed a brick oven in which their name and logo were displayed as they boasted to be the “new Italian generation.” Although we loved Mister P’s logo and Luigi’s directness, the majority gave the coveted “Best Delivery Medium” award to Trio’s Tomato Pie. 

Then, we opened the boxes to see what we were working with. We had to exercise some discipline as we first had to rate each pizza on presentation before rating any of the taste factors. Mister P’s had a cheese distribution error for which we all had to dock some points. Trio’s and Luigi’s both gave good first impressions, but Luigi’s won the hearts of the judges. 

Then we each grabbed one piece from each box, grabbed a piece of paper and rated each pizza slice 1 to 10 on five taste factors: cheese, sauce, crust, cheese-to-sauce ratio, and eating experience. The eating experience metric includes factors like foldability of the pizza, how much of the pizza ends up on your plate instead of your mouth, need for napkins, etc. We all ate one slice at a time to fully process each pizza and rated them on these different metrics throughout the eating process. 

First and foremost we would like to thank Salus for providing the study room in which we conducted our experiment. And we would like to thank each delivery person as well. We all enjoyed the pizza as well as being overly analytical judges. Although Luigi’s had the worst first impression in terms of their box, they stole the show from that point on. Luigi’s pizza looked the best and their average taste rating was better on each metric compared to the others. Luigi’s Pizzarama II is the official winner of the 2022 Abington Pizza Awards.