This Week in Pizza - January 27

It’s a buzz word you hear every day—“interactive.” Everyone’s telling you to make your website or Facebook page “more interactive.” But what about your pizza box? It’s easier to do than you think. It can be as simple as creating a box topper with word-search and crossword games for kids. “If there are games built into them, the boxes will stay around longer,” notes Scott Wiener, author of “Viva la Pizza!: The Art of the Pizza Box.” You can even use your pizza boxes to promote customer contests for prizes that can only be redeemed at your store.

Click here to get 7 awesome tips for pizza box marketing.

4 Ways to Make Your Salad Sales Sizzle

Consulting firm Technomic last year reported on customer preferences and noted four ways to boost salad sales. 1) Offer customizable and build-your-own options; 2) serve premium cheeses with high-end, made-from-scratch and unusual ingredients; 3) provide nutritional information; and 4) offer more variety, including fruits, greens and grains.

Lettuce show you how to make snappier salads at PMQ.com.

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Dough Spinner Wows Columbus In His Second Time Around

Scott Volpe, co-owner of Fiamme Pizza Napoletana in Tucson, Arizona, has a flair for making authentic Neapolitan pizza and a dramatic dough-spinning style. That creative intensity earned the 24-year-old entrepreneur first-place honors in the acrobatic competition at the North American Pizza and Ice Cream Show in Columbus, Ohio, Jan. 25. He was thrilled by his victory after a close second-place finish in last year’s competition. “This was an awesome feeling, to win with all the talented competitors from around the country,” he said. “It’s great to be here, interacting and learning from experienced pizza operators on the Groupon U.S. Pizza Team.”

Move to the Head of the Class

Want to increase your online sales while helping local schools? Universal Promotions’ Project Education program may be the answer. Schools earn points with each online purchase from your pizzeria during a 13-week period. At the end of the promo, they can use the points to order equipment from a selection of more than 2,500 educational items.

Recipe Bank: Pistachio and Sausage Pizza

It’s a little nutty, a little cheesy, and a lot delicious. Caputo Flour shared this savory recipe from Don Antonio by Starita in New York. Check it out, and let us know if you tried it in your store.

Get the recipe at PMQ.com.

Serving Pizza In a Snowstorm

The owner of Angelo’s Pie in the Sky got a ride to work in a police squad car so he could open his kitchen for business last week. What’s so great about that? The Baltimore-area pizza man braved one of the worst blizzards in decades to get there, and he didn’t make a penny from it—he served free food to the homeless instead.

Learn how this gesture of kindness netted Angelo’s a huge PR boost.