Piping Hot: What Goes Into Keeping Your Pizza Warm For Delivery

Have you ever ordered a pizza while picturing a steaming box arriving on your doorstep, filled with your cheesy and delicious dinner? Ever been disappointed to have a lukewarm or even cold pie delivered instead? It can be a real challenge for pizza delivery personnel to keep their products warm until you get it at your house. Here are some of the ways they do it -- or try to.

1. The pizza box.

When pizza restaurants first started to deliver their pies on a widespread basis following World War II, they did so on a cardboard plate. The plate, containing a pizza, was placed in a bag and sent out. But this didn't keep the contents very warm, and cheese and other toppings easily stuck to the top of the paper bag. 

In the 1950s, boxes started to be popular, and in the 1960s, Domino's developed the corrugated cardboard box to better hold in heat. While the main idea has been improved on since, with ways of folding, closing or venting the box, corrugated cardboard still holds the top spot as the material best suited to keeping your pizza hot, cheaply. 

2. The pizza bag.

You've probably seen the padded bags in which delivery folks carry the cardboard boxes that hold your pizzas. They're usually insulated and can carry anywhere from a single pie to a half-dozen at one time.

The idea came from Chicago-area resident Ingrid Kosar, who dreamed up the idea of selling high-quality pizza insulation bags in the mid-1980s. These guaranteed that even on a delivery of several miles, your pizza would retain heat.

Since Kosar's patents have run out, many manufacturers sell pizza bags, but the original ones are still well known for their high quality and ability to hold up to being thrown around a pizza delivery vehicle.

3. The vehicle.

And speaking of pizza delivery vehicles, Domino's has developed a car designed solely for getting a hot pizza to you quickly.

The small cars include a warming oven and plenty of storage to transport lots of pizzas at one time -- up to 80 -- without losing their heat. The vehicle seats just a driver and is being used in major U.S. cities as a test before rolling out throughout North America.

This provides warm pizza, gets good gas mileage and eliminates the undesirable issue of the potentially grungy delivery car that belongs to the driver rather than to the restaurant.

So next time you want your pizza really hot, think about all the innovations that have gone into getting that hot pie to you, and continually improving technology to improve the level of warmth your pizza retains en route from oven to you. If you're craving pizza from reading this article, call Pizza from Perfect 2 For 1 Pizza for a pizza delivery right now!