Chefs in the southern Italian town of Puglia had their pizza ovens fired-up after breaking the world record for number of pizzas made in 12 hours. The town's chefs managed a new record of 5,836 pizzas in under 12 hours, the culmination of a three-day pizza themed festival in the town.
The hard-working group from the Puglia area produced 550 pizzas every hour to obliterate the previous record. That standard of 5,070 had been set last year by the Naples Academy of Pizza in Chiasso, Switzerland. However the Pugliese chefs already had surpassed the previous mark after ten hours and 23 minutes. They then went on to bake a further 766 pizzas.
The new record was set thanks to a team of 43 pizza-making specialists, who came together in Martina Franca in Puglia. Their kneading exploits came at the end of a three-day pizza-themed festival where only high-standard pizzas which met the requirements of the Guinness World Record were counted. The judges checked the dough and the bases which needed to be more than 31cms. According to the Local, about 450 pizzas or 7% in total were disqualified.
However, it wasn’t a case of food going to waste as those that failed to make the grade were handed out free to local charities and to passers-by who were happy to sample the ones that didn't make the cut. Italy has a love affair with pizzas for generations and Italians also love to come out tops when it comes to proving they can churn them out in larger quantities than anyone else.
Earlier this year, a group of 250 chefs made the biggest pizza in Naples. It took 26 hours to produce the 1854 kilometre version which overtook a record previously owned by a Spanish group. That pizza took 1600 kg of tomatoes, 2000 kg of flour and a similar amount of mozzarella cheese to make. Also added in were 200 litres of oil and 30 kg of basil.
