Why is pizza in a square box

The round shape most pizzas have makes it easier to cook evenly compared to a more angular shape. It also makes it easier to quickly divide using a small amount of swipes with a round pizza cutter. Have you ever watched a seasoned pizza maker cut a pizza?

They do it so quickly it can make your head spin. When a pizza maker stretches out a lump of dough, they toss it in the air and use circular motions with their hands and fists to elongate the shape. In nerdy and scientific terms, the centrifugal force of throwing the dough in the air in a spinning motion causes the circular shape. Using the shape that is formed from stretching the dough takes less effort than reshaping it, meaning faster production.

So if the pizza is round, why is the box square? Lucky dip. Any answers? Nooks and crannies. Semantic enigmas. The body beautiful. Red tape, white lies. As it turns out, round pizza boxes have indeed been developed before.

In , Apple filed a patent for a round pizza box with ventilation holes. In , a compostable, tree-free round pizza box was developed by eco-friendly food container company World Centric.

Traditional square pizza boxes, meanwhile, cost around 50 cents apiece. Considering most cardboard manufacturing is already used to develop square boxes for other purposes , the infrastructure in place allows for square pizza boxes to be created affordably.

You never see a round box to accompany a round pizza! You might have never thought about this until now, but here is some reasons why:. So this means it needs multiple pieces of cardboard, joining pieces, or more advanced production. So all in all, it just means more production cost. Square boxes are made up of one piece of cardboard, and this is flattened when it is not in use — i.

Square boxes have equal edges and so fit neatly, and stack easily. Circular boxes still have the same length and width, so they take up the same space. In the grocery stores, pizzas are stacked on shelves and in the freezer. Being square helps them fit into these spaces more efficiently, and neatly. And they can stand up on the shelf without falling over. Square or rectangular boxes are common for everything if you think about it, and we rarely have a box to fit the shape of the contents.

We put shoes in a box, and cereal in a box. Right angles simply make shipping and storage easier. If you want anything bespoke, that always costs more. So this has become well known and traditional. There is the argument that square pizza would be harder to get out of a square box , so a round pizza is actually easier to eat. Pizza is cut into triangle slices because that is the most common way to equally divide a circle — think of a pie chart.

You can also fold slices. This is particularly common in New York where pizza is sold by the slice and is often for take out food.

It can be folded up and eaten on the go. By slicing it from the crust to the center to make a triangle, every slice gets an equal portion of toppings and crust. It would be a bit unfair to give someone only the crusts!