Hi guys, i am curious to know if anyone does paleo pizza,if so is there a market for it? i know it would depend on location, and a good menu.I would love some info on those who alreadt have this on their menu. Thank you
Pizza with a cauliflower crust has gotten a lot of popularity these days. That would be a good paleo base for ya though I think it’s pretty complicated to make involving a lot of squeezing cauliflower mush through a cheese cloth.
I would also be interested to know if any one is making these commercially available. PMQ’s graphic designer Kara Hoffman is on the paleo diet!
Missy, you must have a different definition of “a lot of popularity” than I do!
lol you’re right. I guess it seems popular to me because I saw it frequently when I was in charge of the pizza news room and actively searching everyday for news about pizza. These recipes were usually just for use at home though.
I will say, however, that when I visited Denmark I saw quite a few restaurants that had paleo options. I even saw one restaurant that was 100% paleo. I think it was appropriately called “paleo.”
Never underestimate the power of fad diets! (Especially those based on questionable understandings of our bodies or species history)
Ha! Indeed.
I have to say though - a cauliflower crust encompasses all kinds of diets. Low-carb, gluten-free, grain-free AND paleo. It probably wouldn’t be good to market it as a special paleo pizza but rather as a grain-free crust option.
A crust with quinoa would be good too… Quinoa is questionably accepted on the paleo diet since it’s more an ancient seed than grain. Not to mention it’s got a nice crunch and would be way easier to prepare than the cauliflower crust. Here’s a recipe I found for a quinoa crust that looks pretty good. Nice photos too!
http://www.oatmealwithafork.com/2014/03/03/5-ingredient-quinoa-pizza-crust-vegan-primal-gluten-free/
Thanks Missy looks like i have something to start with,and does look nice
The one problem I keep running into when I think about a Paleo pizza is the cost. All the “flours” you can use (Tapicoa, Coconut, Almond meal, etc…) are all prohibitively expensive - like the prices are 10x what wheat flour would cost. A quick internet search pegs the price of bulk Quinoa at Costco at about $175.00 for 50lbs! Although, no dairy means no cheese so that could offset some of the cost?
Anybody out there with a case of cauliflower, a VCM, a wine press and some time to experiment?
If you have $$ to invest in selling fringe products that will require inventory items that have no other use, increased loss to spoilage, increased marketing to tell the world you now have this weird stuff, take that money and put it into more marketing to the customers we are well equipped to serve with existing product. The return on your investment will be better!
Good advice bodegahwy, i was looking at a different market,those who do not eat pizza,but may if a really healthy choice was available. I do think you are right though,spend more money on promoting my own product. Cheers mate
I’m in 100% agreement with bodegahwy. We have tried introducing a few different options, mostly at lunch, and as good as they were they just did not make it. I finally accepted the fact people come to us for a high quality pizza. Maybe wings or a pasta. That’s it. I now fully accept the fact we are NOT in the health food business. In my experience if you start to try to cater to, shall we say the “unusual” eaters, you will quickly find out it’s not just their eating habits that are somewhat different. Take that how ever you wish…
i sell gluten free items and they do alright I think paleo is quite a nitch market.
really, you can have other items that are paleo that aren’t pizza. Paleo is grain-free and dairy-free which makes for a pizza where nearly everything is substituted out. If you’ve got some baked chicken wings, those would be a paleo option which is not complicated or too risky to make.
What’s interesting is that’s about the response the industry was giving 4 years ago when it came to selling gluten-free. I started to selling ALLERGEN free pizza 4 years ago based on a crust my nearly 8 year old son developed since he suffers from severe food allergies. Now…4 years later…he also invented the allergen-free hoagie roll and we are the leading seller of these products in the US…from one pizzeria location…we sell nearly 300 allergen-free pizzas per week.
Yes the ingredients are more expensive BUT if you make a great product, you will be the only place they will go. I am going to try to work on the paleo pizza just for the hell of it. Heck…it might be the next thing that increases our profits, because allergen-free is a hit for us and we are opening a larger place in 30 days AND increasing the allergen-free options. Remember, not just gluten-free, allergen-free…pizza, hoagies, wings, apps, and my son has his own line of dessert mixes too.
Don’t assume that due to the cost it will not be recouped…it’s done that 10 fold for us.
There’s a big difference between eating allergen free and eating paleo. There are people with allergies, there will always be people with allergies, and there will therefore always be a demand for allergen-free products.
Paleo is a fad. I vividly remember everybody looking for ways to make a low-carbohydrate pizza when the Atkins diet was all the craze. Two years from now it will be something different.
As somebody who is pretty active in fitness and health, these fad diets drive me crazy. They are based on absolutely zero science and are probably actively harmful in the long term with respect to either a body goal, overall health, or both.
I’d be careful about investing large amounts of money into gluten free options as well. I have a surprising number of friends or acquaintances that have gone gluten free just for the heck of it because they think it will help them lose weight.
The actual rate of celiac disease is extremely low. When the fad fades, it will take the vast majority of gluten-free business with it.
On a side note, these fad diets all seem to have one thing in common - they cause a restriction in carbohydrate intake. When you initially slash your carbohydrate intake, your body responds by burning stored glycogen. Every molecule of glycogen is bound to 4 molecules of water… and all that water gets shed out too.
That’s why people drop 5 or 6 pounds in the first few days and think they’ve found the magic answer to weight loss. Then they stall, get frustrated, and get the hell off the diet because it’s so restrictive that it’s impossible to maintain. Then the next fad comes up…
Sorry, I’m off the soapbox!
You are most-likely correct about the Paleo, only because I do not understand it enough, but already have the ingredient to try it out so it’s no more cost to try it, than it is not to.
Now, as for Gluten-Free…I am soooooo sorry and an NOT trying to be rude, but you are so off base, it’s not even laughable. I just went on a rant within another thread hear about it being a fad. It’s NOT. It will never be. We live it everyday in our on home. I assure you that if you spoke on the subject like I do, and deal with these people on an hourly basis, this is so far from a fad that you really need to do some research, or come with me to the gluten-free event I co-chair here in Pittsburgh.
I have spoken on this subject to restaurateurs; pizzeria owners; food manufacturers; and to those who suffer from food allergies and/or gluten issues. It’s an autoimmune disease that is not really curable, only curbable by removing the protein gluten from your diet…which a paleo pizza would also do.
As for the fad part, or trendy, surprisingly I will NOT sell our gf line to anyone who doesn’t really need it. Sure, they could be bs’ing me, but for those who are trend followers, I refuse the sale since our product is in such high demand that I can only support those who really need to eat it.
Sorry for my soapbox, but the theory of a fad was first discussed here…4 years ago.
As for the population being so small…yet only 1% of the population is diagnosed while 80%+/- are out there undiagnosed since the test they use is not so reliable, there are a ton of false-negatives.
Like I said in the other post, I do not sell my sons product to other pizzerias…just too busy maintaining out needs. So in no way is my response to gain sales…it’s a purely educated response while dealing with hundreds of victims per wee.
have a great evening.
You’ve misconstrued my post. My post is not referring to Celiac Disease being a fad, I’m referring to the evidence that 80% of people eating gluten-free aren’t sufferers of celiac (as reported by the Mayo Clinic).
You’ve found a market catering to those with CD, and that’s great. A big part of your success is probably related to your personal experience with your son. For the rest of us that don’t have the knowledge to plow head first into a niche market we should take caution. Perhaps all of those people without CD will continue eating gluten-free for the rest of their lives, and the movement will grow… but considering most are probably attempting to use it as a weight loss diet that doesn’t seem likely.
As for the population being so small…yet only 1% of the population is diagnosed while 80%+/- are out there undiagnosed since the test they use is not so reliable, there are a ton of false-negatives.
You mentioned me not doing research, so I need to ask you about the quote above. Do you have a source for 1% of the population being diagnosed with CD with 80% of people with CD not being diagnosed? The American Journal of Gastroenterology found the rate of CD at 0.71%, including those that were un-diagnosed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850429.
It’s true that 82% of the cases were previously un-diagnosed, but again those are included in the 0.71% overall rate. Statistics from studies tend to get tossed around, mixed up, misunderstood, and then repeated over and over again until they become “truth” - all without anybody going to read the actual study. But the data are right there in black and white.
The University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center reported a very similar 0.75% (including those not diagnosed): http://www.uchospitals.edu/pdf/uch_007937.pdf
Also look at the Conclusions of the American Journal of Gastroenterology study: “Most persons who were following a GFD did not have a diagnosis of CD.”
Again, I’m not denying that CD is real. My point is that the vast majority of those eating gluten-free diets today are not doing it because of CD or gluten intolerance… they’re doing it because they read a book and their friend told them they could lose 5 pounds in 2 days.
From another thread:
This is NEVER going away…NEVER. Before calling it a fad, one should look up the stats on the growth pattern of those diagnosed with gluten issues, or food allergies over the last 10 years.
Ok, I looked it up. According to the American Journal of Gastroenterology, the rate of CD plateaued in 2004: http://celiacdisease.about.com/b/2013/04/09/study-celiac-disease-still-on-increase-but-symptoms-changing.htm
Note it states “This study doesn’t change the overall estimate that one in every 133 Americans has celiac disease (whether or not they know it) – it simply shows that diagnosis of the condition is picking up, and that more people with atypical symptoms (or possibly no symptoms at all) are getting diagnosed these days.”
It’s interesting that the rate of diagnosis increased in the years immediately following new tools being developed to diagnose it.
I commend you for not selling to people following the GFD “trend” and you’re selling 1,300 GF pizzas per month. Given the population of the Greater Pittsburgh there should only be 3,337 people in the entire area with a known diagnosis of CD so you’ve captured a massive part of the market since you only sell to those with a confirmed CD diagnosis.
I think that leads credence to the point I was originally trying to make, which was if you take out the 80% of GFD eaters that are not diagnosed with CD you’re left with a very niche market. There simply aren’t enough true CD sufferers to support every pizzeria selling GF pizza.
Just for fun, you also posted this in another thread:
So let’s see now…let me explain the basics for why this and food allergies exist. Did you know that there is NO public domain soy bean? I bet you didn’t…right? That means that someone, or some company, owns the rights to all soybeans. That company is Monsanto and if they catch a farmer growing soybeans with his generations old self propagated bean, they WILL put him out of business since they own the soybean.
That is just factually incorrect. Farmers get sued when they are caught saving seed from a Monsanto “Round Up Ready” crop and planting it. As they should - when they buy the seeds they sign a contract stating they agree not to save seed.
Monsanto does not own the soybean or all soybeans. Where did you come up with this? Monsanto owns Monsanto’s Round Up Ready soybeans. Farmers can buy non-Monsanto seed from many different suppliers and then save the second generation seed and plant them. The fact that Monsanto’s seeds have a higher yield per acre and farmers want to use them doesn’t change the fact that they also have other options.
And Monsanto stops people from using their old generations old self-propagated seed? That is a patently false, and quite honestly ridiculous, claim. Where did you come up with this one? Do you have a source stating that Monsanto stopped a farmer from using his own seed because they own the soybean?
Ironically, Monsanto’s first generation of Round Up Ready soybeans go off patent next year, and will officially be public domain. Farmers can save all the seed they want from this year’s harvest and replant Monsanto Round Up Ready soybeans in their fields next year without any payment to Monsanto. And even though Monsanto also owns variety patents on many of the seeds, they’ve come right out and said they would not enforce them on farmers using the saved Round Up Ready seed on their own farms.
You told me that I needed to do some research, so I must ask in return if you do any of your own or just believe everything you hear without looking into it at all?