6:30 , if you check the nutritional info on Domino's website it says this: " When you add a topping, the cheese portion is reduced to ensure a proper bake". :)

As a current pizza chain employee, I can honestly say the “base” cheese pizza will have significantly more cheese than a pepperoni pizza because the “base” cheese pizza is considered one topping. They scale back on the cheese when it comes to actually adding toppings to reduce grease factor and gives the pizza a chance to cook correctly.

Hiya MatPat! I used to work in a pizza restaurant chain and we were actually trained to give less cheese when extra toppings were added. It’s partially a cost cutting measure, but more importantly different toppings have different moisture levels that, when baked, change the overall texture (i.e. veggies and greasy meats soak into the sauce, dough, and cheese , which can lead to undercooked middles and overcooked crusts). Plus, too many toppings can trap heat and moisture, which can lead to an uneven melting of cheese. 9 times out of 10 if the pizza doesn’t look “aesthetically pleasing” the customer will request a new one, which means the original gets wasted. Hope this helped to provide some insight! :)

Let’s just take a minute to thank all the former restaurant employees who told us about the pizza weight problem. Thanks guys.

I used to work at Papa John's. Totally on the money for the extra cheese being used to cover the sauce. Papa J's specifically taught us to put the cheese on last as a seal for the toppings.

Imagine being his son and seeing all that pizza and getting excited then your Dad says No it's for science

Hey guys! Former Pizza Hut line cook here to *weigh* in about the pizza weight! We have standard sized cheese measuring cups for pizzas of different sizes! A 14-in any ONE-THREE TOPPING pizza (regardless of crust) gets a large scoop, but once you break that three topping limit, or even if you just get pepperoni with extra pepperoni, you drop down to a medium cheese scoop. (Then for my location, a small cheese scoop on top of the extra pep) I was told it’s to help prevent the extra roni’s from weighing down the dough while it bakes but Idk. Yes I realized this video is two years old

When I worked at Pizza Hut, they weighed the leftover toppings at the end of the night. If the cost ratio was down for the day, meaning too much toppings were used in respect to how many pies were sold, we would be told to "pull light" when it came to the toppings. I rarely listened and just tried to make a decent pie, one I would want to eat. They rip us off all the time. Thank you for the work you do. Consumers are just cattle to be milked by big business 11:53

As a former dominos employee of over 3 years, I can explain what happens with the pizza and toppings. You're kind of right--lots of workers hide their mistakes in extra cheese, especially if their spread is bad and they add to hide clumps. There is, however, less cheese added to the pizza with toppings. For example, a large cheese pizza at dominos gets 10 ounces of cheese but a large pizza with 2 to 3 toppings gets 8 ounces. The minimum for cheese is hit at 4+, which is to say they reduce the cheese even further at 4 or more toppings but cannot go any lower. The pepperoni weighs less than the cheese (especially after dropping some grease in the box) so the weight changes even more. As for the pizza weighing less with extra pepperoni? I can only assume managers want to save money on cheese (which is one of the most expensive components of pizza to buy) and force employees to go light on the cheese when they can to make up for the newbies' heavy cheesing hand. That's been my experience anyways. Edit: I've seen lots of people mention cook time and yeah, that's definitely part of it. My comment was already long as it is though lol. Too many toppings can affect cook time and the pizzas are meant to go through a conveyer belt oven once. The specialty pizza Xtravaganza is a pizza I proffered to make myself because if a newbie made it they would go too heavy on toppings and would not cook right. It's time and efficiency at fast food pizza places like Domino's.

As a chef who specializes in Italian cuisine i can say that the more toppings you have on a pizza the less of each topping you will get. It's not supposed to be a bad thing. If you pile the same amount of cheese on a pepperoni pizza as you do a cheese pizza it will be a soggy greasy mess.

0:21 “18% tip and nobody needs to know about this” “How about 20?” 💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀

Little Caesars employee here: "The more toppings you get, the less toppings you get." meaning, the more toppings you order, the less of each of those we put on, due to making sure the pizza bakes properly, and the reduce production cost.

Worked at Domino’s for 2 years, was trained to put double cheese on cheese-only pizzas and to hold back on toppings the more they add so that it’ll all cook evenly in the oven

As someone who used to work at Pizza Hut, the company actually tells its employees to put less cheese on pizzas that have toppings. It’s less like a cheese pizza is the base that you add toppings onto, and more that you’re replacing the “extra” cheese on a cheese pizza with toppings. It’s been a while, but I believe it was a cheese pizza had a cup of cheese on it and a pizza with toppings had half a cup of cheese on it.

I miss him........

You should also take into account deals that aren't limited time offers. Like, Domino's menu price for a 14 inch pepperoni is $18 ... but there's a carryout special on single topping pizzas that makes them $8 instead, and they've had that deal for the past 2 years or so (before that they had a deal on 3 topping pizzas for about the same price). Little Caesar's just doesn't bother to list the "non-deal" price. So yes Little Caesar's is cheaper even with the deal, but in practice it's not by as much as you'd think by comparing menu prices.

4:55 so I would like to explain something here. I work at a Pizza Hut and have for a while now and the reason the cheese weighs more is because if a pizza Is just cheese with no toppings we have to add an extra half a cup of cheese that way the customer isn't being screwed over for just ordering cheese. But when we add pepperoni we don't put on that extra cheese therefore it ways less. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

As a former Domino’s employee, there’s guidelines to how much toppings and cheese each pizza gets depending on how many toppings there are and the size of the pizza. For example, a normal cheese pizza would have more cheese as opposed to one with toppings like pepperoni so that it comes out of the oven looking right and it’s more cost effective for the company.

Domino’s employee here, who has run both the oven and make line. I can confirm, we go lighter on the cheese on pizzas with toppings. This is because the company actually has pre-determined portions we’re expected to follow.

I currently work at a dominos location and visiting this video makes me so excited. I'm in the process of being cross trained and the main thing I was constantly reminded of was exactly this video in a nutshell. for a regular med hand tossed pizza, it needs to get about 5 Oz of cheese (7oz if you get extra cheese) and about 30-35 pepperonis on each pie. for an extra pepperoni pizza, I remember it's 3 or 5 Oz of cheese and about 40-45 pepperonis per pie. :)

Former Little Caesar's employee here. The reason all of our pizzas have the same weight of ingredients across the board is because we are given very specific instructions for how to top our pizzas, down to the gram, as to not waste any money by giving extra. A standard medium pepperoni pizza is topped with exactly five ounces of cheese (yes, we have a scale to weigh the cheese) and exactly twenty-four pepperoni slices. That's why our base pizza stays the exact same every time

Papa John’s worker here, there is a “base” pizza it just never goes out. If you order a cheese pizza you’re getting the base with its cheese +more cheese on top of it. While a pepperoni pizza is the base +pepperoni which gets much less and weighs less than the extra cheese

9:22 Jesse: "Yo, Mr. Caesar, are we in the pizza business or the money business?" Little Caesar: "Neither... I'm in the empire business."

*Shout-out to Amy for literally removing all the toppings on the pizza 🍕 for this video. Home girl puts in work for the theories* 👍🏿

As a previous dominos employee, we were always taught to put as little cheese as possible, especially on pizzas with toppings

Ex Dominos manager here. I don’t remember the exact measurements, but a large cheese would get 10oz mozzarella, a 1 top would get 8oz mozzarella, and a speciality that included cheese would get 5oz. Also, the more toppings you order, the less of each you get. A large pepperoni would get exactly 40 pepperonis. A 2 or 3 top would get 30, and a 5 top would get 25. Every pizza chain does this with their toppings, to save money and also so the pizza can actually cook underneath all the meat and veggies.

Growing up, Little Caesar’s was my family’s go-to pizza place, not just because of their low prices, but because there was a store only 5 minutes away from our house. Plus the pizza being “hot and ready to go” severely cut down on the waiting time, so it was an easy option for Friday suppers. But recently I’ve tried their pizza again, and I’m not sure if it’s the pizza itself or the garlic sauce I typically get with it, but it didn’t agree with my stomach afterwards. Nowadays, my favorite pizza place is Dominos, with Papa John’s coming in second. Dominos has a lot of options and tastes great. Then for Papa John’s, I often get coupons for it in the mail with some good deals, and the complimentary peppers that come with the pizzas is a nice touch.

I used to work at little Caesars about 6 years ago. Idk if it’s the same at all locations or not but we actually did use cheese pizzas as the base of our pepperoni. We made a stack of cheese pizzas and if someone ordered pepperoni we would take one from the cheese stack, add pepperoni, throw it in the oven then cut and box it

My dad used to work for Domino's and he said your topping theory is 100000% correct

Hi my girlfriend told me this: “With a lot of pizzas, with more toppings we have to add less cheese to counteract the amounts of grease from the meats, if you got veggie toppings it shouldn’t alter much. Even so, if you ever worked at a pizza place we all know we just grab a handful or two of cheese according to how ever many other toppings there are or aren’t”

13:01 I found this interesting because I never found this to be the case at the Little Caesar’s where I live at. Every time we get pizza there, it’s FRESH and the pepperoni’s indeed have the grease. Not as much as other places, but it’s never looked as dry as the one Matpat shows. Guess it just varies from location and I’m a lucky one :D

Tbh my first experience with little Cesar’s extra Pepperoni pizza was crazy. First of all of course as you explained very clearly it was pretty cheap but when we opened the box we were greeted with a mountain of pepperoni, so much we could barely see the actual pizza,and we had to pick off pepperoni so we could actually eat it 😂😂

As a former pizza employee, I can definitively say it is NOT the employees. A Papa John's cheese pizza gets 2.5 cups of cheese on a large pizza. A pepperoni gets 2 cups of cheese.

I love little Caesar’s advertising because in their ads or promotions they never use the words good or delicious or anything like that. All they say in description of their pizza is that it is hot and it is ready and it is cheap

As someone who worked at pizza hut and dominos during college years, having more toppings mean longer bake time. I remember making my own pizza ro take home and loaded up the pizza with tons of cheese and toppings. The center of the pizza ended up undercooked, and the dough was raw.

I work a Sbarro and the recipe book says to use 11 oz for the cheese pizza, and 9 oz for any other pizza with toppings.

Matpat calls Pizza Hut 4th place: Pizza hut: perfect time for an ad

As a domino’s employee I know that when we make a cheese only pizza we actually put extra cheese by default

I worked at a small pizza join after high school and we weighed our cheese, so depending on the size there was a chart that showed how much it should weigh and that was all the cheese you were supposed to add. Yes, some employees added extra.

I work at a pizza chain and we have a chart by topping and as you add toppings you decrease the ounces of cheese you add

- So, MatPat, what are we eating? - This month? Pizza! - Sweet! ... Wait, what do you mean, ''month''?

As a broke person ceazars is the only way to go

Worked for papa johns and pizza. Basically each topping you add the quantity of toppings goes on the pizza gets lowered.

Thank you matpat for 13 great years!

I've personally worked at Little Caeser's, and we were trained to MEASURE out the cheese we put on each and every pizza. It was continuously enforced to NOT just grab a 'handful' and slab it on the pie before throwing it on the oven rack. We had measuring cups, and whether we were cooking cheese, or cheese + pepperoni pies, every one we made had a relatively EQUAL amount of cheese. So my experience matches your data. HOWEVER... there were definitely times NOBODY measured. You have days you're swamped, you have days where the manager on duty didn't care, or let's say your measuring cups all fell on the floor and everyone was way too busy to go back and wash them. A variety of variables happened DAILY, and having worked at multiple fast food locations, I can tell you that this is the same EVERYWHERE. It entirely depends on how busy you are, how many employees you have staffed, the QUALITY of employees you have, and what type of manager you have that shift. PLEASE keep THIS fact in mind when conducting food experiments like this! I guarantee, unless the quantity of something is measured AND ENFORCED to be measured, you will get different results every time you conduct them. :)

I worked at Little Caesar's for a bit. Whenever I made a cheese pizza I'd add a little more because I felt like there just wasn't enough "stuff" on the pizza. Like, if cheese is gonna be your only topping, I'll ham it up to make sure you're gonna enjoy it. That being said, they were pretty strict about toppings there. They had us count how many pepperonis you put on for a standard and extra pepperoni pizza. If the person working at landing wasn't chill (not like you Caitlin, you were chill), they could rat you out to the boss that you were giving away too much pepperoni. I'll be the first to admit that 24 pepperoni for a standard pizza is way too few, so I'd sneak about 4 or 5 more on there when I could. I also tried to cut my pizzas all the way through with the pizza cutter, but Scott said I took too long doing that. If you ever get a pizza that's not cut all the way through, it's Scott's fault.

0:00 Matt’s regular every day experience talking to a pizza delivery guy

Little Caesar's has been my favorite pizza chain since i was a kid. I don't know if that's my notalgia talking of if my tastebuds are just so conditioned to it after getting it nearly every day after elementary school for 4 years, but hearing it got 1st place in a few sections made me happy.

Hey MatPat, I used to work at Papa John's in Canada. The cheese issue was actually a practice put in place by the company. A large pepperoni pizza came with 2 cups of cheese, but a large cheese pizza came with 2 and a half cups of cheese. A large pepperoni pizza gets 32 pepperoni slices on it, but an extra pepperoni pizza gets 16 extra pepperoni, and because the pepperoni is on top of the cheese, there's a higher chance for pepperonis to fly off in the oven, so you're potentially getting around 40 or so.

I work at dominos, you’re actually taught to use less cheese if more toppings are used. You actually use a scale to know how much to put. A medium cheese pizza gets 7.5 ounces and a medium pepperoni pizza gets 5 ounces of cheese. It’s the same with all sizes and toppings. More toppings = less toppings

I worked at a local chain in my hometown for an extended amount of time and what we did, is out toppings UNDER the cheese. I was never on the pizza station, but I think putting the toppings underneath definitely encouraged them to put a lot more cheese. The place was really generous with toppings too though. Would be curious to see if the toppings being under/on top changes anything about flavor. Best pizza dough ever too! miss that job I would get free food on my breaks and any pizza that wasn't picked up by the end of the night was up for grabs for anyone who wanted it.

dominos employ here a plan cheese gets about 3oz more cheese than a one topping and that cheese gets lower the more toppings you add. The pepperoni we use is lighter than the cheese, it's actually so annoying because one handful of pizza cheese is 3oz.

"Are you the person who ordered a dozen pizzas?" Me, in an 11 person family: *sweats nervously*

as a pizza place worker once the "pressured to cover more" theory is really accurate lmao

When i worked at caseys gen store in the kitchen we had to add the same weight of cheese to each pizza toppings or not. It depends on the place and rules

It depends on the company. I worked for a local pizza company and the cheese was the same across all pizzas

"Oh you ordered Little Caesars?" It is good?" "It's hot and ready." "But is it GOOD?" "HOT AND READY!"

Some guy: No one can out-pizza the hut! Little Caesar’s: Hold my extremely heavy pizza

5:37 a place i worked at. We would just use mozzarella for toppings pizza and, ones without toppings we would add a handful of cheddar. So yes it still had a topping but the topping was cheese. Cheap and probably weighs more than most toppings would add

Yo matpat, i work at papa johns and with the cheese its pretty simple. We measure our cheese by cups and Every large pizza with toppings on it gets 2 cups of cheese, but a plain cheese pizza gets 2 1/2 cups and sometimes maybe 3 depending on how generous we are being (mostly to cover up all the sauce like you said).

I worked at Domino’s and i was told to put less cheese with more toppings because if there’s too much toppings then the dough won’t cook right

Food Theory is just and excuse so that Matthew can live out his dreams of being that one guy from math problems who orders a bunch of stuff in excess

At Little Caesars, we had a cup for cheese sprinkling so you got the same amount on every pizza (so the extra pepperoni pizza being lighter than regular probably means they've been instructed to simp on the cheese, I don't remember if that was a thing when I worked there)

Don't forget that Lil Caesars also makes their own dough in the back instead of having the dough already made elsewhere and delivered

I worked at Pizza Hut, they actually put 50% more cheese on a cheese only pizza to stop the sauce from burning. The pizzas with toppings just get the base amount of cheese

new food theory: matpat only made this channel so he could order a bunch of junk food and say it was for research purposes

I work at a pizza place right now, we add the same amount for regular pep. Extra pep though, we add less cheese

I work at Marco's. Cheese is weighed, pepperoni is counted. A very honest system we use

Worked at a pizzeria for over 10 years. Yes the “make it look good” analogy is correct. Less toppings means you made it look better by covering it with more cheese, thus heavier.

Just got a Pizza Hut ad during this video. "No one out-pizza's the hut" Me: Well this is awkward.

I’ve ran several pizza restaurants and for a plain cheese you’ll get more cheese. When you add other toppings we add less cheese, because it saves a lot of money.

As someone who worked at both Pizza Hut and Domino's, it's not at all surprising that a pepperoni pizza weighs less than a cheese pizza. I don't know how it couldn't. If a cheese pizza weighed less than a pepperoni pizza, they'd be ripping you off on cheese. It wouldn't even look like a cheese pizza; it would look like a base that someone forgot to put toppings on. Cheese is a topping. A cheese pizza isn't just a base; it's a base plus about twice as much cheese again as the topping. I don't remember exactly how much it was at Domino's (it's weighed); but at Pizza Hut, it's measured out with a measuring cup. A cheese pizza is two and a half cups of mozzarella, and half a cup of parmesan. Every other pizza on the menu just has one full cup of mozzarella as the base. A pepperoni pizza is one cup of mozzarella and 40 pieces of pepperoni. They're supposed to be counted out and positioned so that there are 5 pieces on each slice and you don't cut through any of the pepperoni when you cut the pizza, but most of the staff probably don't do that. Either way, 40 pieces of pepperoni weighs _a lot less_ than the extra cheese that would be on a cheese pizza, and even less after cooking, because pepperoni loses more fluid during cooking than cheese does. We never had a pizza called "double pepperoni" on the menu, but if someone ordered that, we'd just double the amount of pepperoni and keep everything else the same, so it would definitely weigh more than a standard pepperoni pizza, but still less than a cheese pizza. Bear in mind, this is in Australia, where a large pizza at every pizza chain I've ever been to is 11", and they're cut into 8 slices. I'm sure there would be more toppings on a 14" pizza, and I guess it's probably cut into 12 slices, but we never had a pizza that size anywhere that I worked.

Anyone else noticing more and more food theories on Mat's favourite foods so that he can write them off as business expenses? xD

I got an advertisement for Pizza Hut saying “No one outpizzas the hut.” the moment they revealed the gram per $ for Pizza Hut Extra Pepperoni.

12:13 No way, MatPat's editors predicted Pizza Tower

I know this is late but I worked at a pizza place for awhile and our boss got mad if we used more than what was “needed” for certain pizzas. And little ceasers is less strict …depending on the general manager 😅

"STOP Ordering Your Pizza Like This!" Italians: *No, we don't think we will.*

When i worked at one of these chains, years ago, we reduced the topping quantity, as the number of toppings increased. Otherwise they tended to not cook properly.

how does a pizza place not offering in house delivery service

At the pizza place I worked at every large pizza got one large bag of cheese regardless of toppings. Regular pepperoni got I think 12 slices and extra got 18. Our cheese amount was not dependent on toppings. The pizza’s definitely got heavier with more toppings.

the cheese pizza actually counts as “extra cheese” pizza so if you’d add the toppings to the weight it should average out

As a former Domino’s employee this is my explanation for the weight issue. When you order a pizza, we put a certain amount of cheese on it before adding toppings. Some stores have a cheese spreading device where you dump a measured amount of cheese in and it disburses it evenly over the pizza. After we do that we add toppings. (Important:) A pizza comes with any one topping at no additional cost. But if you want a cheese only, we add extra cheese, because extra cheese counts as your one topping. So since this extra added cheese is heavier than the peps without extra cheese, it weighs more.

now that you went so into the pepperoni... i want to know about the sausage ones....

I work at a pizza place and for example we use 6 oz of cheese for our med pizza but if you get only cheese you get 9 oz on a med and this is what our company gives us as our "recipes", I would assume its because when you get a cheese pizza you want a lot of cheese on your pizza

"Pizza hut actually got 4th place here-" Ad interruption: nObODy oUt PiZzAS tHe hUT.

I actually work at a Little Caesar's, have been since Sept 2019, and.. I've never been told to reduce cheese for more toppings. We have a standard cheese cup that we use for all our pizzas, minus Thin Crust Cheeses and Pepperonis, deep dish anything, and our Stuffed Crust Cheeses and Pepperonis. The only time we change the amount of anything is if someone asks for light/extra cheese or sauce (extra cheese turns it into a custom, unfortunately, so it would be much pricier), and the more topping variety you want for customs, the less amount you get per topping, so it cooks more evenly in the oven. I know I'm very late to this, but who cares? I have info XD Have a good day random reader who reads this.

So I’m a manager at my local papa John’s, the reason for the cheese difference is simple. At Papa Johns (sticking with the large) on a cheese pizza we use 2.5 proprietary “cups” of cheese and on anything with toppings it’s 2 “cups” of cheese. The sauce itself is identically proportioned on all large pizzas based on your base sauce… That 1/5 cup less of cheese shouldn’t be that big of a difference in overall weight. The pepperoni pizza is topped at 21-15-6 (number of pepperoni per ring) and the extra gets a 50% increase on the pepperoni and the cheese is still 2 “cups”

0:24 love your intro

I've managed various pizza shops since 2014 at the shop I manage now we reduce the cheese and toppings on pizzas as they get more because it takes longer to cook all the way through the more toppings that you add so it gets to a point the crust would be burnt to cook it all counting cheese.

I'm an assistant manager at Dominos, it's in the training for both franchises and corporate stores to put less cheese on pizzas if they have toppings.

You forgot Hungry Howie's. I love their pizza over a majority of the listed. It's the cheese stuffed pizza. Though Little Caesars and Domino's is good too.

If you bought pizza from the little Cesar’s I work at, I would have a habit of accidentally putting too much pepperoni or cheese on them😂😅

In normal times, that delivery guy would just assume you are having a party. But in Covid times, they know you are just a sad person.

I worked at a pizza place for two years we never left off cheese. But when you make a cheese pizza and you see sauce you just feel like you need to add more.

I used to work at pizza hut and cheese pizzas started with a base of cheese and then get another half cup of cheese

12:58 I've seen it before somewhere, but I can't really put finger on it

I literally work at Domino's 😂 watching this on break.

I'm a former pizza maker at one of these places. The plain cheese pizza actually has double cheese. When you add toppings you only get single cheese so it will be lighter. I presume the extra pepperoni being lighter is employees not putting much cheese on. That's not a standard practise we are told to do.

I have a reason my mom works at pizza hut and the reason the pepperoni is lighter is because when there is no meat they put a lot of cheese hope that helps

We had a fast food chain in England that was insanely cheap, 16inch pizzas with whatever toppings for £4.50 nowhere in the country even came close. I could never work out how they did it.