Pizza Hut is releasing its second annual Pizza Trends Report featuring the latest research on consumer pizza eating habits and an outlook on emerging trends in the industry. From toppings and unique combinations to pizza-eating behaviors and consumption, the report offers a comprehensive look at how Americans continue to embrace their love for pizza.

Pizza Hut and its culinary experts predict 2025 will be a year of more pizza (32% of people predict they'll eat more pizza than they did in 2024), pizza pairings and combinations, bold and modern flavors, among several other trends explored in their latest report.  

Second annual Pizza Trends Report. Courtesy of Pizza Hut

 

"The Pizza Hut brand is built on a strong heritage of innovating the pizza experience, from the Original Pan Pizza introduced in 1983 to Original Stuffed Crust in 1995, and innovation continues to be at the core of everything we do," said Rachel Antalek, Pizza Hut's chief food innovation officer. "We continue to see a growing trend and demand for unique flavors and modern, bold toppings. We are also seeing customers gravitating towards pairings or pizza-centric accoutrements that complement their orders, whether it be dipping sauces or sides like wings."

Pizza consumption

• The average person eats 288 slices of pizza per year.
• Kansas leads the way when it comes consumption of pizza slices per month, on average, with Kansas reporting they eat an average of 9.4 slices a month. Next states consuming the most slices are North Dakota (9.9), South Dakota (9.4), West Virginia (9.3) and Wisconsin (9.3).

Pizza and wings

• Bone in or boneless? Pizza Hut's new research looked at the age-old chicken wing debate. Forty-six percent prefer boneless wings, while 43% prefer bone in. Twelve percent have no preference.
  • Delaware (53%), Maryland (53%) and North Carolina (54%) are the states who vote bone in, while Kansas (64%), Maine (60%) and Montana (62%) prefer boneless.
• Over half of Americans (59%) agree pizza and wings are the ultimate pairing, with 52% believing ordering wings with pizza makes the overall experience better.
• Seventy-one percent say they order chicken wings with their pizza, at least on occasion. The three states who are most likely to "always" order pizza with wings are California (17%), Delaware (16%) and Missouri (14%).
• When it comes to the specific tastes of the pizza and wing pairing, 45% said they prefer their wings be a different flavor profile than their pizza.
  • Many respondents shared their favorite pizza and wing flavor profiles with combinations ranging from 1. pepperoni pizza with honey wings, 2. veggie pizza with spicy wings, 3. onion and mushroom pizza with sweet and sour wings, 4. meat lover's pizza with Old Bay seasoned wings, and 5. Hawaiian pizza with barbecue wings.

Toppings, crusts, flavors

• When looking at on-trend and unique pizza toppings, mushrooms (57%) were ranked most popular. Garlic (41%), pineapple (38%), anchovies (8%), pickles (8%) and cherries (2%) followed as other unique toppings ranked by pizza lovers.
• The experts at Pizza Hut predict thin crust continues to grow in popularity. Consistent with Pizza Hut's 2024 survey findings, thin crust remains the most popular type of pizza crust (29%) followed by stuffed crust (24%) and hand-tossed crust (23%).
• When it comes to eating a stuffed-crust pizza, many shared what stuffing they'd like to try: unique cheeses (47%), meat (34%), garlic (31%), ranch (19%) and jalapenos (18%).
• New York topped the charts as the most popular pizza style again, with 29% claiming New York Style pizza is the best, followed by Chicago Deep Dish (22%), Sicilian Style (8%) and Detroit Style (4%).
• As customers look to experience global flavors, 37% of Americans report that they'd most like to try a Mexican-inspired (37%) or Greek-inspired pizza (21%). They would also like to try French (12%), Korean (11%) and Thai (10%).

This online survey of 5,000 American adults, split evenly by state, was commissioned by Pizza Hut and conducted by market research company Talker Research, in accordance with the Market Research Society's code of conduct. Data was collected from Dec. 19 to Dec. 30, 2024. This survey was overseen by Talker Research, whose team members are members of the Market Research Society (MRS) and the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR).

Source: Pizza Hut