The Secret Behind Costco's Shockingly Fast Pizza-Making Process

Costco pizza is a thing of beauty. Each 18-inch pie is cooked to perfection in mere minutes and sold for only $9.95 a pop. It might seem impossible that such a delicious pizza can be made so quickly, yet Costco manages this feat in such a short period of time. Don't think that this is an infrequent process, as Costco food courts are constantly churning out pizzas in order to meet demand. You won't find a stale pie in the bunch either, as employees toss pizzas out after an hour in order to ensure freshness. So, how does Costco manage to make their pizzas at such a breakneck pace?

It should come as no surprise that the wholesale club has mastered the art of pizza-making. The membership-based retailer is known for efficiently preparing large quantities of food sold at affordable prices. Just look to Costco's rotisseries chickens, which are cheap and churned out fresh each day. For the large and low-priced pies, the food court's pizza-making efficiency comes down to a few things: an automated preparation process and specialized equipment to speed up cooking.

One of the key aspects of Costco's speedy pizza-making process is automation. First, the dough, which is sourced fresh from Brooklyn, is pressed in a machine specifically made to, well, you guessed it, press dough. It is then rolled out on a perforated pizza pan. After the dough is shaped, it is sauced using an automated sauce dispenser. When placed on this machine, the dough spins while a moving sauce nozzle dispenses pizza sauce evenly over its surface in a swirling shape. Then, the cheese is added (and boy, do Costco's pizzas have a lot of cheese) along with any pepperoni. Finally, the pie is put through a conveyor belt oven for exactly six minutes. And voilà! From start to finish, making a Costco pizza only takes about eight minutes. 

The use of all this machinery helps ensure that each part of the pizza-making process is precise. The sauce dispenser, for example, isn't just a fun little doohickey meant to show off the company's adoption of fancy futuristic technology. Rather, it is an efficient way of making sure that each pie gets the exact same amount of sauce and that it's perfectly distributed. Similarly, the conveyor belt oven cooks the pizza evenly every time. 

Even with the heavily automated elements of Costco's pizza-making process, the company uses a few tricks to speed up the cook time that aren't machine powered. Some of the chain's efficiency comes down to tried-and-true pizza cooking techniques. For one, Costco uses perforated pizza pans to bake each pie. These pans are similar to a standard pizza pan, except for the fact that they have holes on the bottom. These holes allow for better airflow while cooking to speed up the process and, as an added benefit, help the pizza develop a crunchy crust while baking.

When rolling out each disc of pizza dough, Costco workers use a special tool called a dough docker. This handheld roller is covered in points that pierce the pizza dough when rolled across it. These small piercings help stop the dough from forming bubbles and decrease each pie's cook time. All of these steps and tools come together to create one incredibly speedy cooking process for Costco's famously tasty and affordable pizza. And although Costco doesn't offer pizza delivery, the food court's efficiency means you probably won't be left waiting for long to take a savory pie home for dinner.