Food & Beverage

Pizza is world's 'most-googled' takeout food

When it comes to the world's most-Googled takeout food search terms, true allegiances are being revealed, including the fact that Indian food failed to win the top choice in India and that the U.K. bypassed its trademark fish and chips, which Canada actually searched for most.

Pizza wins the world ... at least as a Google takeout food search term. (iStock)

January 15, 2021

You've heard a million times that your pizzeria's online presence is critical, but the latest study from British insurer, MoneyBeach, only underscores the necessity of getting your act together when it comes to search engine optimization. That's because the company found that globally last year, when it comes to googling food takeout options, pizza reigns supreme.

After studying Google searches from 109 nations worldwide, MoneyBeach found the term "pizza takeaway" was tops for food-related searches in 44 of the 109 countries. Oh, and yes, the home of pizza, Italy was among them, as was India. But in the U.S., the top takeout food search was actually Chinese food, though the cuisine ranked second in search terms globally.
Here's how the rest of the cuisines ranked as Google takeout food search terms:

Pizza: led in 44 countries.
Chinese: led in 29 countries.
Sushi: led in 10 countries.
Fish and chips: led in 6 countries.
Fried chicken: led in five countries
Indian: led in four countries.
Korean: led in three countries.
Thai: led in two countries.
Tapas: led in one country.
Tacos: led in one country.

Some of the more eye-opening findings from the data included that despite the fact that Indian food was not tops in India, Chinese food was actually the top choice in China. In Russia, the top takeout search term was kebabs, which didn't even finish in the top 10 globally. And lastly, apparently there's still a lot of British allegiance in Canada, where fish and chips topped the search term list, though back in the United Kingdom itself, Chinese was the top choice.

And speaking of the top UK choice …

Clearly, Chinese cuisine is — as that study points out — big competition in the popular takeout category for pizza restaurateurs. In fact, as the No. 1 pick in the U.K., it is easy to understand why Domino's in the U.K. developed an add with some conversation taking aim at the culinary category. But the way it was done is raising international ire now for many, who are loudly protesting online that Domino's latest TV campaign there is a racial slam against the Chinese.

In the 30-second TV spot, three British women were trying to decide what to order for takeout, when one of the trio says, "Anything but Chinese."

The uproar online and elsewhere for the small bit of dialogue in the spot was immediate and harsh, with some saying Domino's singled-out Chinese food in the commercial in a racist manner, according to Resonate.com.

One online comment said, "Wow okay so there's indirect racism- singling out the Chinese," the comment reads. "YET trying to promote and fit the current BLM trend with 'only black people' advertisement propaganda. Whoever made this advert needs the sack. Good job dominoes."

The Twitter-verse also lit up with comments.

I feel like if the character had expressed some sort of reason behind the line 'anything but Chinese' i.e. not liking a certain dish, or being bored by the cuisine, then I might have been willing to look at it from different perspectives. But this reads as purely insensitive. https://t.co/Y6ds3Hv88Q
— Lana Lei (@thelanaklei) January 12, 2021