For reasons that aren't entirely clear, Pizza Hut seem to have developed possibly the weirdest
gimmick in the fast food industry: selling the most bizarre pizzas they can possibly
come up with.
From pizzas within pizzas to crazy stuffed crusts, these are Pizza Hut's most unusual
menu items.
Released in 2012, Pizza Hut Singapore's Double Sensation pizza seems to have been made by
taking two smaller pizzas and stitching them together, like some kind of perfectly concentric
Frankenstein's monster.
The outer pizza has a crust stuffed with melted mozzarella, Parmesan, and cheddar, and is
topped with turkey, ham, bell peppers, and a mushroom and salsa sauce.
Meanwhile, the inner crust is stuffed with chicken sausage and cheese, and rings a pizza
topped with smoked chicken, zucchini, and a pepper Alfredo sauce.
At the exact center of the pizza is a cherry.
Putting aside just how odd this concept is to begin with, you've got to give Pizza Hut
some credit for only selling the Double Sensation during 2012's festive season, likely under
the reasonable assumption that sales would plummet in January, once everybody had sobered
up.
The P'Zolo was the name given to Pizza Hut's incredibly misguided attempt to steal competition
from Subway.
Released in the U.S. in 2012, these pizza-sandwich hybrids were made from a doughy, cheese-infused
crust and filled with a choice of fillings: Italian Steak, Buffalo Chicken, or the Meat
Trio of sausage, pepperoni, and ham.
Pizza Hut went in hard with the P'Zolo marketing, too.
The item's tagline was "See Ya Subs," they were priced at almost exactly the same as
a Subway sandwich, and advertisements implored customers to "Say so long to a footlong" and
boasted of "More bang for your 5 bucks."
Subway themselves probably weren't bothered by Pizza Hut's jabs, though, considering that
the P'Zolo wasn't really a sandwich at all.
Instead, it was more like a cross between a burrito and a calzone, only not as good
as either.
In fact, the only people likely to have been offended by Pizza Hut's aggressive rollout
of the P'Zolo are Italians themselves.
Speaking of annoying the Italians, this is the Mac 'N' Cheese Stuffed Crust pizza.
Introduced in the U.K. in 2017, this one is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.
A stuffed crust and a béchamel base play host to a topping of macaroni, cheese sauce,
triple cheese blend, and crispy onions.
And if that's not quite enough, Pizza Hut also created a version with a BBQ base and
topped with a drizzle of BBQ sauce.
Gareth Hopley, Pizza Hut's head of communications, tried valiantly to justify the Mac 'N' Cheese
pizza's existence.
In a statement, he explained:
"You can't beat a bowl of Mac 'N' Cheese, and when combined with our famous stuffed
crust, it really is a match-made in cheesy heaven.
We can't wait for our guests to try it!"
Either the Mac 'N' Cheese pizza really did do well, or time heals all wounds, because
in 2020 Pizza Hut released a personal version of the pizza at Target stores stateside.
Then again, the crust wasn't actually stuffed with this one, and the pasta was rotini, not
macaroni.
So really, this is less of a Mac N' Cheese Stuffed Crust Pizza and more of a Plain Pasta
Cheese Pizza.
Doesn't sound quite as good, does it?
For some reason, Pizza Hut have tended to forego innovating with their toppings, and
instead prefer to spend all their time and energy trying to come up with as many new
types of crust as they can.
And some of them are seriously odd.
"I'm not gonna lie to you, it's gonna get weird."
First introduced in the Middle East in 2012, the Crown Crust Pizza was made up of a number
of grilled mini cheeseburgers nestled in golden crown crusts, circling a pizza topped with
beef, fresh tomato, lettuce, and special sauce.
Pizza Hut also offered a chicken-based version, which had breaded chicken tenders instead
of cheeseburgers, and was topped with chicken strips, green peppers, and BBQ sauce.
A year later, the Crown Crust Pizza spread to the United Kingdom, with all the unsettling
ease and swiftness of a zombie pandemic.
In both cases, the pizza's roll out was met with immediate criticism.
Some attacked the 2,880 calorie beast for being representative of fast food greed and
waste, while others were content to complain about the sad, cold realities of the pizza
itself.
One critic called it a "cultural abomination," while another suggested the pizza might be
"a sign of the apocalypse."
In 2015, Pizza Hut took their crust game one step further, when they debuted the Meat Pie
Crust Pizza in Australian stores.
The item was part of a collaboration with Australian meat pie company Four'N Twenty,
and was announced with a slew of bizarre, uncomfortable social media gags made by each
company on Twitter.
In a later statement, Pizza Hut Australia's head of marketing explained:
"Aussies love pizza and we love pies, so in a world first, we've brought these two legendary
foods together in the crust...Pizza Hut is the home of Stuffed Crust and we're being
more playful with our Stuffed Crust innovation than ever before."
The pizza itself is ringed with meat pies and topped with a number of ingredients, including
bacon, onion, bell pepper, and pepperoni.
Words used to describe the pizza in The Guardian's taste test include: "cheap," "nasty," "disgusting,"
"tasteless," and "stupidly unnecessary".
Pizza Hut's Hot Dog Bites Pizza is a standard pizza ringed not by a crust, but by a couple
of dozen dough-encased pieces of hot dog.
It hit U.S. stores in 2015, based on a recipe first used in the U.K. a few years earlier.
Shortly after the pizza debuted, E! News performed their own taste test.
One reviewer wrote:
"It was very…interesting.
Very unique.
Was kind of expecting the hot dog to be like, fully wrapped in the crust.
I probably would have felt a lot less guilty about breaking my diet."
Another of their critics was even more taken with the new item.
They said:
"Did it live up to my own personal hype?
Absolutely...I would suggest this for a drunk late night, a hungover Sunday or really any
child's birthday party."
One of their staff members arguably summed things up best, however, when they said:
"This pizza is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they talked about the future
of this great country."
"USA!
USA!
USA!"
You might have noticed that many of these Pizza Hut creations have come courtesy of
the chain's many international branches.
But there's not much logic behind who puts what out.
After all, what's Singaporean about the Double Sensation; what's British about the Mac 'N'
Cheese Pizza?
You can't say that here, though.
In 2013, Pizza Hut Canada decided to go as Canadian as you can get by introducing the
Cheesy Beef Poutine Pizza.
This pizza is topped with french fries, cheese curds, and gravy, along with shaved seasoned
steak and mozzarella.
The Cheesy Beef Poutine pizza was part of a "Something for Every Canadian" limited menu,
along with an Asian BBQ pizza, a Creamy Butter Chicken pizza, a Grilled Chicken Club pizza,
and a Smokey Maple Bacon pizza.
In a statement, Pizza Hut Canada's marketing director said:
"The Canadian landscape is changing and these new recipes are our way of celebrating Canada's
diversity and multicultural outlook in a modern, exciting way, and tapping into Canadian favorites.
Pizza night will never be the same in Canada."
In case you're not aware, Marmite is a salty, dark spread with British origins, made as
a by-product of beer-brewing, and renowned for its slogan, "Love it or hate it."
Of course, what most people won't tell you is that everyone hates it, and everyone who
says otherwise is a liar.
So major props to Pizza Hut New Zealand for inventing the Marmite Stuffed Crust Pizza.
Released in 2014, this pizza is made from a slightly different brand of Marmite than
that made by the Western company that uses those iconic yellow-and-black jars; as such,
it tastes a bit different than the Marmite you've had in the past.
But make no mistake: that doesn't mean it will taste any better.
Thankfully, the Marmite-Stuffed Crust Pizza hasn't made any kind of resurgence since it
debuted six years ago, and it's probably safe to assume that the recipe has been locked
away in an underground vault somewhere, never to be seen again.
The Hash Bites Crust Pizza is the kind of menu item that, compared to some of the other
stuff Pizza Hut has put out, actually seems surprisingly normal.
Introduced in New Zealand in 2016, this pizza is hardly different to any normal Pizza Hut
pizza, it's just got a load of tater tots pressed into it the crust.
The toppings can be anything you like, it doesn't look that outlandish, and it's hard
to imagine it doesn't taste pretty good, either.
Obviously, it's not going to be winning over any Italian hearts and minds anytime soon,
but most people won't be too bothered that this thing exists.
Sadly, this particular pizza hasn't hit U.S. stores yet, and it's not likely to anytime
soon.
Around the same time, however, Pizza Hut did release their Garlic Knot Crust in America,
which proved popular enough to make a reappearance in 2019.
Okay.
This is the Pizza Hut Fish Roe Salmon Cream Cheese Pizza.
It is sold in Hong Kong.
It comes in two versions: the first is topped with scallops, crayfish, shrimp, clams, cherry
tomatoes, peppers, red onions, and Thousand Island sauce.
The other includes sausage, pepperoni, cherry tomatoes, peaches, mushrooms, peppers, berry
sauce, and the citrus fruit pomelo.
When you bite into the crust, fish eggs ooze out.
Quite something, isn't it?
Shortly after this monstrosity hit stores, the Financial Times ran a piece on it that
not only explained its existence, but also revealed just why Pizza Hut seems so obsessed
with weird pizzas in the first place.
According to Pizza Hut's chief marketing and food innovation officer, there are certain
standard brands and menu items that make the chain what it is.
But Pizza Hut also branches out and creates their wackier menu options in overseas restaurants
in order to generate buzz and get people talking about them.
In Hong Kong, Pizza Hut runs an annual three-day event where chefs, managers, and suppliers
can plan future menu items and come up with a range of headline-grabbing products.
They're mocked up with Play-Doh and then tested in a kitchen, then the best go to further
testing before hitting stores.
The Fish Roe Salmon Cream Cheese Pizza was one such example of these innovations.
So, in short: they do it for the attention.
And to be fair, it kinda works.
Pizza Hut offers a fair range of dessert items: you've got your cookies, your brownies, your
cinnamon sticks, nothing too out of the ordinary.
And then there's this: The Hershey's Toasted S'mores Cookie Pizza.
It's a massive cookie, topped with s'mores, melted marshmallows, chocolate, and graham
cracker crumbs.
It was introduced in 2016, for a limited time only, and made a comeback in 2018.
At the time of its debut, Pizza Hut's vice president of marketing said:
"The new Hershey's Toasted S'mores Cookie builds on our history of innovative, delicious
desserts, and brings familiar flavors together into one quality dessert that everyone will
gather around the table, or campfire, to enjoy."
The Hershey Company themselves explained:
"Hershey's chocolate is synonymous with s'mores and summer, making this new dessert, from
Pizza Hut, a perfect twist on the summer classic.
The new Hershey's Toasted S'mores Cookie builds puts an innovative twist on the classic summer
s'mores dessert."
Of course, that's all just PR posturing.
The important thing here is that the Toasted S'mores Cookie Pizza is big, weird, and completely
unnecessary, a real Pizza Hut classic.
Heck, just be glad it hasn't got fish eggs in it.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Mashed videos about the finest foods are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.