How many pizzas are eaten in Italy each year?

How to get close to this number

Multiply population by frequency. The country has around fifty-nine million people, and the explanation gives the per-person figure as roughly forty-six a year — close to one a week. Population times a weekly habit produces a total in the billions.

Once a week sounds low for the country most associated with the dish, and that is the useful correction. Pizza there is an evening meal eaten out or ordered, not a daily staple, and the daily staple is pasta. National association and national consumption frequency are different things, exactly as with tea in Britain elsewhere on this site.

The protected status detail is the one worth keeping: the rules governing the Neapolitan version specify dough hydration, oven temperature and the permitted tomato varieties. Legal protection of a food specification at that level of detail is rare, and it turns a recipe into something closer to a technical standard with an enforcement body.