A recent article in ProFood World reported that the global frozen pizza market is projected to be at $35 billion by 2033. If you are a manufacturer of frozen pizzas, you most likely saw an increase in sales stemming from the pandemic as consumers ordered more frozen foods and ate their meals at home. The article also notes that there has been continued growth as manufacturers offer more toppings, different crust options, and vegan ingredients.
As the options increase, however, there could also be an increase in potential physical contaminants and food safety issues.
How Frozen Pizza is Made
Frozen pizza is manufactured through a multi-step process that involves several stages of preparation, assembly, freezing, and packaging. By scouring the internet with artificial intelligence prompts, you will discover how frozen pizza is typically manufactured:
- Dough preparation: The process begins by preparing the pizza dough. This involves mixing ingredients like flour, water, yeast, salt, and sometimes oil or sugar. The dough is then kneaded and allowed to rise for a specific period to develop flavor and texture.
- Sauce preparation: While the dough is rising, the pizza sauce is typically prepared. This usually involves combining tomato paste or sauce with various herbs, spices, and seasonings to create the desired flavor profile.
- Toppings assembly: Once the dough has risen, it is rolled out into the desired shape and thickness. Then, the sauce is evenly spread over the dough, followed by the addition of cheese, meats, vegetables, or any other desired toppings. The toppings can be pre-cooked or raw, depending on the specific recipe.
- Baking and cooling: The assembled pizzas are then baked in large ovens at a high temperature for a specific period. This process cooks the dough, melts the cheese, and ensures the toppings are properly heated. Some manufacturers partially bake the dough prior to sauce and ingredients being added to it, as shown in this video. After baking, the pizzas go through a cooling process to bring them to a suitable temperature for freezing.
- Freezing: Once the pizzas have cooled, they are rapidly frozen to preserve their quality and taste. This is typically done using specialized freezing equipment, such as blast freezers or freezing tunnels. The quick freezing process helps to maintain the freshness and texture of the pizza.
- Packaging: After freezing, the pizzas are individually wrapped or placed in packaging materials designed to keep them protected during storage and transportation. The packaging often includes airtight or resealable features to prevent freezer burn and maintain the pizza’s quality.
It’s important to note that specific manufacturing methods and ingredients may vary depending on the brand and type of frozen pizza being produced.
Ensuring Quality Products and Food Safety
One thing that remains consistent with all pizza production facilities is the need for quality control. Throughout the manufacturing process, quality control measures are implemented to help ensure that the pizzas meet specific standards. This may involve visual inspections, taste tests, and adherence to food safety regulations.
Let’s talk about food safety for frozen foods. We just outlined the steps to getting that delicious disc to your consumer’s kitchen table. Unfortunately, at each step of the way there is potential for foreign metal contaminants to enter the process. Luckily there are technologies available to food manufacturers that can help keep unwanted materials out of the packaged pizza box.
Product Inspection Technologies
Most food manufacturers utilize food weighing and inspection equipment as part of their food safety program. Metal detection technology is one of the most common ways that food processers help ensure there are no metal contaminants in the foods that reach the customers’ hands. These contaminants could have originated in products coming from a supplier, or they could have fallen into the processing stream by way of broken or worn equipment or by nuts, bolts, and screws that have loosened from quickly moving, vibrating machinery.
Food metal detectors find small particles of metal by utilizing coils wound on a nonmetallic frame and connected to a high-frequency radio transmitter. When a metal particle passes through the aperture, the electromagnetic field is disturbed, changing the output signal by a few microvolts. This output indicates metal is present, so the contaminated product can be rejected off the line and the appropriate personnel can be alerted – long before it reaches consumers’ hands.
Pizza Challenges
Frozen foods, however, present unique challenges to metal detectors. In a previous article, Frozen Meat Pizza May Contain Unwanted Metal Toppings, we discussed how wet and conductive products with high salt and fat content (dough, cheese, seasonings) can produce a response in the metal detector system that can be mistaken for, or mask, a contaminant response – this is known as product effect. For frozen products, the level of freeze is important; partially frozen product will respond differently versus fully frozen product when passing through a metal detector and, unless taken into account, this can cause false rejects as production conditions vary throughout the day.
To improve sensitivity and enable the detection of many metal types and smaller sizes, many food manufacturers use multiscan technology. Metal detectors utilizing multiscan technology scan up to five user-selectable frequencies running at one time. Multiscan provides unmatched sensitivity and the highest probability of finding ferrous, non-ferrous, and stainless steel metal contaminants in challenging applications such as dairy, meat, poultry, bread, and other foods – such as pizza — with high product effect. Multiscan technology allows a single metal detector to achieve the effectiveness and sensitivity that would previously require several machines operating in-line.
Summary
Consumers are looking for quick and easy meal options that require very little prep time as their schedules become full from juggling work, taking care of their families, and other commitments they may have. If you are a frozen pizza manufacturer and want a slice of that $35 billion market, there better not be any unwanted metal contaminant toppings in your consumer’s ‘slice of Heaven.’
Additional Resources
- Online Resources for Food Weighing and Inspection
- Application Note: Assuring the Safety of Frozen Foods During a Global Pandemic – and Beyond
