ROSEMONT,
Ill. –
Dairy Management Inc. (DMI) onsite scientist Nitin Joshi has helped Pizza Hut
launch handcrafted Detroit-Style pizza nationwide.
Joshi,
vice president of product development, said the new offering has 50 percent
more cheese than a similar rectangular pizza on the chain’s menu.
The
project was in the works for more than a year and began from a brainstorm
session between DMI and Pizza Hut team members. The group often meets to
determine “what is next,” Joshi said, and they recognized growing consumer
interest and trends in Detroit-style pizza.
Each
pizza is rectangular-shaped and features cheese all the way to the edges to
create a crispy, caramelized crust. The pizza is loaded with toppings and
finished with a vine-ripened tomato sauce. Joshi said he and the Pizza Hut team
experimented and made as many as 600 pizzas before settling on the final
product.
“There
were a lot of challenges along the way with ingredients to assure that proper
baking and quality could be accomplished in Pizza Hut restaurants across the
country,” said Joshi, who goes by the nickname “Dr. Cheese.”
“We
worked through those challenges and I’m really proud and happy with the final
result. I think the dairy community will really love this pizza and in seeing
more cheese as a key ingredient.”
There
are four Detroit-Style recipes, including Double Cheesy, which is layered with
two kinds of cheese, Double Pepperoni, Meaty Deluxe and Supremo. The pies are
being offered on a limited-time-only basis.
Joshi
worked on a good portion of this project from his house because of
work-from-home measures instituted by Pizza Hut’s headquarters in Plano, Texas,
during the height of COVID-19 last year.
“Working
through this in a lockdown environment shows Nitin’s commitment to seeing this
project through,” said Bernardo Callejas, senior vice president of global
innovation partnerships for DMI. “There is nothing like having a dairy champion
embedded in our partnerships to make sure what we’re developing and working on
brings the highest return on investment for our farmer and importer checkoff
funders. This was Nitin’s baby for the last year. He lived and breathed Detroit
pizza every single day.”
The
Pizza Hut team and franchise owners also are appreciative of Joshi’s commitment
to this project, which joins a line of innovate items such as Original Stuffed
Crust and Original Pan.
“Nitin’s
drive, passion and vision for Detroit-Style pizza showed every day,” said Penny
Shaheen, senior director of food innovation at Pizza Hut. “We’re thrilled to
add another innovative and flavorful offering to our menu that responds to the
trends we see that meet our consumers’ needs.”