Pizza may have been born in Italy and become an American delivery icon, but the dish is popular around the world. According to Business Research Insights, the global pizza market is worth a staggering sum of nearly $200 billion. While it hasn’t taken hold everywhere, people from China to Brazil are pounding slices at a record rate. Here, we probably still think of hamburgers as the true national dish, but given the amazing diversity of regional pizza styles the U.S. has developed, you couldn’t be blamed for thinking the nation has overtaken Italy as the pizza kings of the world. It’s a popular party food for every occasion, after all. But in reality, neither the U.S. nor Italy holds the crown. It turns out the world’s biggest pizza lovers are actually found in Norway.
That’s right, pizza has completely won the hearts of the small Scandinavian country. With a population of only 5.5 million people, the U.S. certainly eats more total pizzas than Norway. However, on a per-person basis, nobody can touch the Norwegians. Per the World Population Review, the average person in Norway eats 11.4 kilograms of pizza each year; that’s over 25 pounds. The United States does finish a clear second, with each person eating an average of 23 pounds of pizza a year (via The Washington Post). And Italy is actually all the way down in fifth, behind Canada and Australia too, eating just under 17 pounds a year. Maybe it’s those small margarita pizzas compared to beefy American slices and deep dish.
Norway tops the charts of pizza-loving countries
At first glance, the fact that Norway loves pizza so much may be a bit of a surprise, as there was barely a pizza industry there before the 1970s, compared to the American embrace of pizza decades earlier. But Norway has a history of eating their own native flatbreads and open-faced sandwiches, so the embrace of the Italian style makes plenty of sense. Norwegians have embraced frozen pizza in particular, consuming almost 50 million each year in total, according to Atlas Obscura. A brand in Norway called Pizza Grandiosa is sometimes considered the nation’s national dish, and five whole pies are eaten by each person in the country on average every year. That’s almost half of the nation’s pizza consumption by itself.
As you may expect, popular pizza toppings and flavors are also a little different in Norway than in the U.S. The classic Pizza Grandiosa is topped with crumbled “pizza meat,” red bell pepper, and Jarlsberg cheese, which is similar to American Swiss cheese. Corn and shrimp are other popular Norwegian pizza toppings, along with a controversial American pizza, the ham and pineapple Hawaiian. It’s not all frozen pizza either, as a square-shaped pie called a lørdagspizza is also a popular homemade pizza style in Norway. It turns out the versatility that has made pizza so customizable and popular in America translates to almost any cultural palate, and a love for melted cheese and bread really is a universal thing.
