Complaint: not enough sauce

[eduardo]

A couple of customers have told us that they feel our pizza lacks sauce.

This could mean a couple of things, the obvious one, is that there is not enough sauce. The second one is that the sauce lacks flavour thus giving the false impression that there is not enough sauce on the pie.

I would prefer to work on my sauce to add more flavour to it.

In any case, can you share with me the amount of sauce you put on a pie, say 12in and 14in ?

Somewhere I learned that you have to “paint” the pie with sauce not to cover it, seems that suggestion isn’t working very good for me.

(I checked the faq and this question wasn’t there)

 

[bodegahwy]

Sounds like not enough sauce to me. It is not a paint job. We use about 8oz on a 16" pie. I would estimate the quantity on a 14" is more like 6oz.

 

[billy_romano]

what is your sauce made with now

 

[td_VP192]

We do 8oz. on a 14" 9oz. on a 16"

 

[j_r0kk]

td,

Take a look at your portioning. If a 16" pizza has an area of 200.96" and a 14" pizza has an area of 153.86" You’ve got this problem:

14" pizza (153.86") / 8 oz. = 19.2325" per ounce of sauce

16" pizza (200.96") / 9 oz. = 22.3289" per ounce of sauce

Which means, you’re putting far less sauce on a 16" than a 14". Perhaps you need to tell those franchisors the correct portioning for a 16" should be 10.5 oz. of sauce if they like the way the 14" pizza looks. If they like the distribution of sauce for the 16" pizza, then the 14" should be 7 oz. I know it’s not you that came up with those measurements, but you might want to enlighten them.

I’m this:

14" - 6 oz
16" - 8 oz

-J_r0kk

 

[cowtown]

4.5 oz. on a 12"
6 oz. on a 14"

All my recipes/make sheets are based on one size pie and the rest are done with mathematics. That way they’re all the same.

 

[NicksPizza]

Theoretical portioning:

3.5 on a 10"
5 oz. on a 12"
9 oz. on a 16"

I do ounces of sauce per sq inch to get a more ‘sensitive’ indicator of balance. Either way, you gotta know what a big difference looks like, and a small difference:
10" .0446 oz/sq in
12" .0442 oz/sq in
16" .0448 oz/sq in

 

[Registered_Guest]

Those “exact calculations” are incorrect unless you guys sauce all the way to the edge.

A 16" pizza has more “crust” and thus need less sauce per square inch than a 14".

 

[NicksPizza]

Registered Guest:

Those “exact calculations” are incorrect unless you guys sauce all the way to the edge.

A 16" pizza has more “crust” and thus need less sauce per square inch than a 14".

For that contingency, add .5 oz to the 16" and take away .25 ounce for the 10" . . . use the 12" inch for my benchmark. Less precision this way, but I want to keep in .25 ounce increments.

 

[royster13]

The point here is you should not wing it if you want to have a consistent product…Find some way to calulate hopw how you need to make it look like you want and stick with it…Consistent product is what your clients want…RCS…

 

[bodegahwy]

For our shop we use an 8oz spoodle to measure and spread the sauce. One full scoop is the portion for 16" pies. We sell about twice as many 16" as we do 14" and 12" COMBINED. The portion for the 12" and 14" inch is estimated by eye rather than measured. Considering the low cost of sauce I am comfortable with that wheras we measure the cheese for all three sizes each pizza.

 

[Rockstar_pizza]

we use an 8 ounce lattle as well for our large and we eye the small and medium, BUT if it was me I would ask those same customers to try a pizza with a little extra sauce and get your feedback because you may findout that both are the issues that need to be addressed. we LOVE stanislaus

 

[royster13]

It is not about the cost of the sauce it is about consistency…Put an extra ounze of sauce on a 12" pizza and it may end up being crap because it does not cook the same…One of the locals that has a gas conveyor runs everything through at the same speed and time…If it has too much sauce it comes out mush…Same if your toppings and/or dough is warmer or colder than the norm…

 

[td_VP192]

j_r0kk:

td,
Take a look at your portioning. If a 16" pizza has an area of 200.96" and a 14" pizza has an area of 153.86" You’ve got this problem:

14" pizza (153.86") / 8 oz. = 19.2325" per ounce of sauce

16" pizza (200.96") / 9 oz. = 22.3289" per ounce of sauce

Which means, you’re putting far less sauce on a 16" than a 14". Perhaps you need to tell those franchisors the correct portioning for a 16" should be 10.5 oz. of sauce if they like the way the 14" pizza looks. If they like the distribution of sauce for the 16" pizza, then the 14" should be 7 oz. I know it’s not you that came up with those measurements, but you might want to enlighten them.
-J_r0kk

Nope, that’s how they want it. Our 16" is advertised as a different style crust(neopolitan) than our traditional crust. It’s the same 20oz. dough ball that we use for the 14", only stretched to a 16". We are supposed to use the specs for the 14" when making the 16" neo. Same amount of sauce, cheese and toppings. I’ve always put a little more sauce on though(9oz.).

 

[tommieknowspizza]

I think you need to work on flavor.

Add ingredients like roasted garlic, oregano, parsley, basil, pepper, brown sugar, and a white wine.

If you add more sauce on a pie, you have to add more cheese to cover it up.

With the price of cheese lately, I have been doing some tweaking of my own.

I cut back my sauce to
1.5 oz on a 8"
3.0 oz on a 12"
4.5 oz on a 14"
6.0 oz on a 16"

I also cut back my cheese
from 4.5 oz to 3.0 oz on a 8"
from 9.0 oz to 6.0 oz on a 12"
from 13.5 oz to 9.0 oz on a 14"
from 18.0 oz 12.0 oz on a 16"

I did this incrementally over the last 6 months reducing about 8% a month. So that the amount was barely distinguishable to the regular customer.

I also did some re-evaluation of my toppings, and cross-checked it with my competitions. I bought a few pizzas from my competition, and I dissected their products. To assess how much of each topping they were placing on the pizza.

This has reduced my food cost by 8% saving me about $3200 a month.

I still give the customer about 25% more than my major industry competitor, which I think is a good competitive feature.