Jamie,
This is to follow up on my last post in which I mentioned that I uncovered more information from further research on Papa Gino’s.
One of the best tricks I have learned when researching a company whose pizzas I am trying to reverse engineer and clone is to look for documents that the company is required to provide to schools where the pizzas are to be served. I did this today and found two interesting documents on two Papa Gino’s pizzas sold to schools, one for an extra-large cheese pizza and a second document for an extra-large pepperoni pizza. In both cases, there are detailed ingredients lists for the pizzas. I have provided the related links below, along with the ingredients lists from the documents.
http://sharepoint.naschools.net/highschool/foodservice/Food%20Service%20Important%20Documents/Papa%20Gino%20Elementary%20Nutritionals%20per%20slice.pdfPapa Gino’s School Lunch - XL Cheese Pizza with 8 oz cheese
November 2010
INGREDIENTS: Flour, indust, white, 13% prot, bleached, enrich, Pizza Sauce {tomatoes, salt, black pepper, oregano, garlic powder, citric acid}, Cheese Blend{Mozzarella cheese (pasteurized milk, cultures, salt, enyzymes), Aged cheddar cheese(pasteurized milk, cultures, salt, enzymes), romano cheese (sheeps milk, rennet, salt),oregano, natural flavors, salt, sodium citrate, sodium propionate}, Water, YellowCornmeal, Salt, Soybean Oil, Bakers Yeast.
Allergen: Wheat, Dairy, Soyhttp://sharepoint.naschools.net/highschool/foodservice/Food%20Service%20Important%20Documents/Papa%20Gino%20Secondary%20Nutritionals%20per%20slice.doc Papa Gino’s School Lunch - XL Pepperoni Pizza with 16 oz cheese
December 2010
INGREDIENTS: Flour, indust, white, 13% prot, bleached, enrich, Pizza Sauce {tomatoes, salt, black pepper, oregano, garlic powder, citric acid}, Cheese Blend {Mozzarella cheese (pasteurized milk, cultures, salt, enyzymes), Aged cheddar cheese (pasteurized milk, cultures, salt, enzymes), romano cheese (sheeps milk, rennet, salt), oregano, natural flavors, salt, sodium citrate, sodium propionate}, Water, Pepperoni Pork, beef, natural flavorings, contains 2% or less of water, dextrose, lactic acid starter culture, oleoresin of paprika, dehydrated garlic, sodium nitrate, bha, bht, citric acid, Yellow Cornmeal, Salt, Soybean Oil, Bakers Yeast.
Allergen: Wheat, Dairy, SoyThere are several things to take away from the above ingredients lists:
First, the protein content of the flour is given as 13%. Unless Papa Gino’s has changed flours, I believe that the 13% figure is within the +/- 0.3% variation of the Spring King flour. Also, with the level of detail given for the flour, I think we can safely rule out the use of semolina.
Second, the amount of the cheese blend in each case is more, by weight, than the amount of water. As will be noted from the headings above, in one case the pizza has 8 ounces of the cheese blend and the other has 16 ounces of the cheese blend. So, for an extra-large cheese pizza, there must be less than 8 ounces of water.
Third, there is less soybean oil by weight than the amount of salt. So, if we assume 2.25% salt, there must be less than 2.25% soybean oil. Also, since cornmeal (yellow cornmeal) is listed as one of the ingredients, its weight should be more than 2.25%.
Finally, the total weights of the two pizzas, based on the Nutrition Facts given in the two referenced documents, do not comport with the weights given for extra-large cheese and pepperoni pizzas at Papa Gino’s website at
http://www.papaginos.com/nutrition.html?topic=pizza. I believe that the differences are because of the different amounts of cheese blends used for the two pizzas. It is quite possible, for example, that the school versions of PG pizzas can be different than the store versions. As you may already know, a PG extra-large pizza is 17” (I called three Papa Gino’s stores, one in MA and two in NH, and they all said 17”). That size pizza is usually cut into 8 slices. As I understand it, Papa Gino’s sells three sizes of pizzas: 10” (small), 14” (large) and 17” (extra-large).
Because we now have a better idea as to the pecking order of ingredients and some additional numbers, the above information should be a good guide to coming up with a test dough formulation. However, there is still some missing information. For example, is the 17” pizza made by simply stretching out the dough skin for the 14” pizza to 17” or is there a separate size dough ball for the 17” pizza size, and is it proportional to the other dough ball weights (e.g., the dough weight per square inch is the same for all size pizzas)? Also, is the cheese blend distributed proportionately over all pizza sizes (e.g., the amount of cheese blend per square inch is the same for all size pizzas)? I would expect that coming up with a dough formulation for the 17” size will be a precursor to coming up with a dough formulation for the 14” size.
Peter
