Here’s Why Pizza Savers Are Important
Pizza savers do exactly what their names suggest. They mainly prevent the top of a food container, especially a pizza box, from collapsing in at the center and touching the food inside. They are less common now, but you can keep an eye out for it as they still come in some packages.
Pizza comes with various toppings however, the most essential one is actually not edible because it is made of plastic. The pizza saver was invented at a time when pizzerias did not know how to keep their pizza from getting squashed during delivery.
What is the Purpose of the Pizza Saver?
It looks small and almost inconsequential, but a pizza saver is one of the most elegant inventions that will remain relevant for as long as peoplecontinue to get pizzas delivered. It is used to keep the corrugated cardboard boxes off the top of the pizzas, saving the toppings in the process. Before its invention, the toppings often stuck to the roof of the boxes because they would sag in the middle after getting softened by steam from the cooling pizzas.
The Unique Origin Story of the Pizza Saver
The pizza saver is also known as a "package saver," "pizza stack," "box tent," and "pizza nipple.” It was created by Carmela Vitale, a 46-year-old woman living in Dix Hills, New York on Long Island with her family.
Vitale was a doting mother, a loving wife, and an active member of her community who served on the city council. The world knows her as an inventor today, but she had no career as a scientist or as an engineer. She simply saw a problem and solved it.
Some believe Vitale probably used to order pizza often as a family woman and had come across the mess it made without the saver, so she worked to eliminate that. She wrote in the abstract for her patent filing:
"[Delivery products] require a relatively inexpensive and disposable box or carton. Cartons of this type, and particularly those used to deliver pizza pies or large cakes or pies, comprise boxes with relatively large covers formed of inexpensive board material. Due to the quality of the board and their large size, there is a tendency of the covers to sag or to be easily depressed at their center portions so that they may damage or mark the pies or cakes during storage or delivery."
Vitale submitted the patent request for the "package saver" in 1983. It is a small, tented piece of plastic with three arms extending from a central circle.
The patent gained approval two years later, on February 12, 1985, and proved to be a great addition. It made it easier to deliver pizza, which comes in giant corrugated cardboard boxes.
Did you Know you Could Use the Pizza Saver to Slice Pizza?
As the name suggests, a pizza saver is used primarily to save pizza. However, people have also found other uses for it, including slicing pizza. Not too long ago, Dallas-based content creator Rowheim Farooqui took to Instagram with a video on how to use the pizza saver to evenly separate pizza. It left many stunned, and they took to the comment section to express how shocked they were by the food hack.
