Journal of Applied Pizzology Volume 23 Now Available

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CHEESEVILLE, OH — The editorial board of the *Journal of Applied Pizzology* (JAP) is pleased to announce the publication of Volume 23, Issue 1, now available in full online at pizzaresearch.edu/jap and in print for the journal's 1,847 institutional subscribers. All six articles in this issue are available open access under a Creative Commons license, continuing the Journal's commitment to the principle that pizza science belongs to everyone.

Issue Highlights

Volume 23, Issue 1 represents what Editor-in-Chief Prof. Adaeze Okafor-Wellington has called "one of the strongest single issues in the Journal's recent history," a characterization she stands behind despite the fact that she says some version of it every quarter.

Lead article "Quantitative Analysis of Cheese-to-Sauce Ratios and Their Correlates with Consumer Satisfaction: A 1,400-Subject Cross-Sectional Study", authored by Dr. Francesca Napolitano and Dr. Marcus Cheeseberg, provides the field's most statistically robust analysis to date of the optimal cheese-to-sauce ratio. The study's primary finding — a ratio of 2.73:1 by mass — has already generated significant discussion on academic pizza science forums, two strongly worded letters to the editor (published in this issue), and one enthusiastic endorsement from a major pizza chain whose legal team has since asked the Journal not to name them.

Additional Articles

"Predicting Consumer Satisfaction from Pre-Consumption Pizza Attributes: A Gradient Boosting Approach" by Dr. Yuki Tanaka-Wheat and colleagues applies machine learning methods to a dataset of 6,200 pizza evaluations, achieving 81.4% accuracy in predicting satisfaction scores from crust color, cheese coverage, and topping density alone. Notably, the model predicts dissatisfaction with 94.1% accuracy, which Dr. Tanaka-Wheat describes as "probably the more useful capability in a commercial setting."

"Thermal Gradient Mapping in the Post-Oven Resting Period: Implications for the Slice-and-Serve Interval" by Dr. Aria Saucington provides the first systematic empirical basis for the optimal post-oven resting time before slicing — 3 minutes, 40 seconds — a finding the author acknowledges "no one will follow" but which is "nonetheless correct."

Also included in this issue: a systematic review of crust hydration literature (2000–2023), a methods paper on standardized pizza evaluation protocols, and a brief communication on the statistical properties of topping clustering that the editor notes is "short but unusually interesting."

Letters and Correspondence

This issue features two letters responding to the cheese-to-sauce ratio findings. The first, from Prof. Hartmann of the University of Stuttgart, expresses "significant methodological reservations." The second, from an anonymous writer identifying themselves only as "a pizzaiolo with 40 years of experience," agrees with the 2.73:1 ratio, questions the need for the study to have been conducted at all, and requests to be named a co-author retroactively.

The editorial board has denied the retroactive co-authorship request while acknowledging that the correspondence was "among the most entertaining we have received."

Subscriptions and Access

The *Journal of Applied Pizzology* publishes four issues per year. Institutional subscriptions are available through the PRI Press at an annual rate of $1,200. Individual researcher subscriptions are available at $180 per year. All back issues are freely available in the PRI Digital Archive after a 12-month embargo period. Volume 22 is now fully open access.

The Journal's impact factor of 3.74 places it in the top quartile of food science journals, a milestone the editorial board celebrated with a party that, sources confirm, did not serve pizza — a choice described by attendees as "a statement" and by Prof. Romano as "an act of aggression."