Pizza box

The pizza box or pizza package is a folding box made of cardboard in which hot pizzas are stored in for takeaway. The "pizza box" also makes home delivery and takeaway substantially easier. The pizza box has to be highly resistant, cheap, stackable, thermally insulated to regulate humidity and suitable for food transportation. In addition, it provides space for advertising. The pizza packages differ from those of frozen pizzas, which contain the frozen product in heat-sealed plastic foils as is the case with much frozen food.

Containers to deliver freshly baked pizzas have existed at least since the 19th century, when Neapolitan pizza bakers put their products in multi-layered metallic containers known as stufe (singular stufa, "oven") and then sent them to the street sellers. The aerated container was round and made of tin or copper. Disposable packaging started to be developed in the United States, after the Second World War. At that time pizza was becoming increasingly popular and the first pizza delivery services were created. In the beginning they attempted to deliver pizzas in simple cardboard boxes, similar to those used in cake shops, but these often became wet, bent or even broke in two. Other pizza chefs tried to put pizzas on plates and transport them inside paper bags. This partly solved the problem. However, it was almost impossible to transport at the same time more pizzas inside one bag. In this way, the pizzas on the top would have ruined the surface of the others.

The first patent for a pizza box made of corrugated cardboard was applied in 1963 and it already displayed the characteristics of today's pizza packaging: plane blanks, foldability without need of adhesive, stackability and ventilation slots. The combination of such slots along with water vapour absorbing materials (absorption agent) prevented the humidity build-ups that characterized traditional transport packaging. It is assumed that the pizza box was invented by Domino's Pizza, even if they did not file a patent application. Until 1988 this chain employed a type of packaging whose front side was not directly connected to the lateral sides, but rather the flaps fixed to the lateral sides were folded inward under the lid. This design is also known as "Chicago folding". Domino's was the first pizza producer which employed pizza boxes on a large scale and in this way expanded its delivery range beyond the area immediately close to the pizzeria. Towards the end of the 1960s, the delivery service was further developed thanks to the introduction of heat-insulating bags.

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