Las Vegas — The 40th annual International Pizza Expo and Conference returned to the Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall earlier this week.
Bread. Cheese. Cherries. Cookies. Marinara sauce. Meatballs. Mozzarella sticks. Pasta. Pizza boxes. Salad. Sandwiches. It was all on display at the Pizza Expo. Attendees were given free samples to enjoy!
Electric pizza ovens are becoming very popular in the industry. They preheat super fast and are more efficient than wood fired ovens. Eurodib is a manufacturer and distributor of professional kitchen equipment.
“The advantage here is it allows you to get to very high temperature, 600-800 degrees Fahrenheit,“ said Alexandre Dumaine, Vice President at Eurodib. “It is a stone oven. It’s also single phase and that answers a lot of needs as far as needing to get a big power outlet to plug in the oven. While being electric, it’s inherently better for the environment than wood-fired or gas-fired. There’s no greenhouse emissions being generated while cooking the pizza.“
A large robotic arm drew big crowds to the BMG display. They make round recyclable pizza boxes that are perfect for stacking. It reduces materials by 35 percent and weight by 40 percent.
“Our pizza boxes are made out of paper board,” said Jake Kowaleski, chief commercial officer at BMG. “The other thing that is a little bit of a difference is they’re quite a bit smaller, use less material and then we designed quite a few features into these boxes. You have vent holes so you can let some of the steam out. You have grease wells on the bottom. They actually stack together and grease wells also work as a nesting feature. Your top is your bottom and your bottom is your top. They are a universal pizza box.”
Grant Manley told me about Mellody plant-based hot honeys. They are based in Oakland, California and are hoping to get their product into restaurants.
“This is compositionally identical to what bees make—same sugar, same water, same plant compounds,” said Manley, national sales manager at Mellody. “It’s kind of lab-grown diamonds and earth-grown diamonds. We have a retail sale bottle for retail. We’d love to work with pizzerias and fried chicken places and get a little visibility for the brand. We think we’re making something really special. This is really exciting. We’re right next to the demo booth so we have a little bit of extra energy particularly in this area.
Lamb Weston introduced me to their fridge friendly fries and tater tots. They will last for up to seven days in a refrigerator. That’s a big plus for restaurants and pizzerias.
“Today, we have two products—one is fridge-friendly tater tots and French fries,“ said Deborah Dihel, Vice President of strategic growth innovation at Lamb Weston. “Those are fries that can be held in a refrigerator and then cooked up in a pizza oven. Then, we have some of our favorite products: stuffed spuds, which are potatoes with cheese inside and then we have our colossal crisp fry. We have a lot of great things for pizza restaurants. This is our potato wall. We built a pizza wall built out of potatoes. That’s our appreciation for the Pizza Expo.“
Even national brands like Dole, General Mills, Stouffers and Tyson foods had a presence at the Pizza Expo.
That’s a slice of the 40th annual International Pizza Expo and Conference. For more info, go to: https://pizzaexpo.pizzatoday.com.
Round pizza boxes by BMG 
Eurodib electric pizza oven 
LambWeston fridge-ready fries 
LambWeston saluted the Pizza Expo with this pizza wall 
Mellody plant-based hot honey 
Cheeses 
Sapori di Oggi gluten-free pizza 
Attendees picking up their badges at the Pizza Expo