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NAPICS to offer first-ever hands-on Pizza Test Kitchen

If you've ever wanted to try out a pizza oven or a dough product—while at the tradeshow where you found it—you'll get your chance in the NAPICS Pizza Test Kitchen, Feb. 8-9.

January 18, 2004

Ever left a pizza tradeshow wondering ...

... how all those pizza ovens in the manufacturers' booths would cook a pie if they actually were plugged in?

... what those pizza sauces would taste like if they were hot?

... how those cubes of mozzarella proffered on toothpicks actually would melt on your pizza?

This year, you'll get your chance with the introduction of the first-ever Pizza Test Kitchen Resource Center at the 2004 North America Pizza & Ice Cream Show, Feb. 8-9, in Columbus, Ohio.

This unique, hands-on center is a complete working kitchen in which NAPICS attendees can see, taste and touch for themselves a wide range of pizza products and the machines used to make and bake them.

Experts from sponsors Doyon Cooking Equipment, McCall Refrigeration, Q-Matic Technologies and Presto Foods will be on hand to address operators' questions and provide pizza tips.

Access to the center is available to all attendees and included in the price of admission to the show. Exhibit hall hours are 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on both days.

NAPICS chairwoman Ann Reichle, who co-owns two pizzerias near Cleveland, called the one-stop-shopping experience a boon to operators.

"Being able to actually work and operate different types of equipment and use real product is just like having someone come to my pizza store with a big truck and unloading it," said Reichle. "There isn't better opportunity to do this anywhere else."

Brian Green, general sales manager for Dayton, Ohio-based distributor Presto Foods, said

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the ability to get out of the booth where food prep is limited, and getting into an actual kitchen where potential customers can try out products is advantageous for everyone.

"This is something totally unique," Green said. "Enabling customers to walk off the show floor where they just looked at products, and then put to use some of the stuff they've seen, that's going to be very powerful."

Bring your own or try theirs

Since every shop's pizza dough is unique, Reichle encouraged operators to bring their own doughs for test runs through different manufacturers' dough sheeters and ovens. For the less initiated, however, plenty of proofed pizza shells will be on hand, along with different lines of pizza sauce, cheese and toppings.

For operators faced with particularly sticky dough issues, Tom Lehmann (a.k.a. The Dough Doctor), director of bakery assistance at the American Institute of Baking, will spend both days of NAPICS in the center answering questions. Several other manufacturer's reps will also be on hand to offer assistance.

The real benefit of the center, said Sanda Burtea, vice president of operations for oven maker Q-Matic Technologies, is that operators are able to make better-informed product choices after having tested them.

"I think it's important for people to compare between different technologies and different styles of equipment so they can make good decisions," said Burtea, whose company is in Gurnee, Ill. "Bringing together all the components (in a pizza) is really beneficial to the end-user. You just make one stop to see everything, instead of going booth to booth."

It's also beneficial to providers looking to expose their products to lots of potential clients at once, rather than one at a time, she said. "That makes it 10 times the better opportunity for us ... than taking a trailer full of our equipment to each individual place."

The Pizza Test Kitchen is proof, said Presto's Green, of NAPICS unparalleled pizza focus, and that's something he's urged his sales force to promote to their customers.

"I keep telling them that they've got to get their customers to show, because they could not possibly sample the same number of items during the course of year than they could see during one or two days of this show," he said. "It's one thing to be able to come to NAPICS and see such a variety of products, but to come and be able to customize your own pizza in a test kitchen ... nobody else is doing that as far as I know."

* To register online for the 2004 North America Pizza & Ice Cream Show, click here.

* To register to compete in the 2004 Pizza Pizzazz, click here. Deadline is Jan. 30.

* To register for the Pizza Operators Workshop, to be held Feb. 7 (the day before NAPICS officially opens), click here.