For the next 3-days Parma becomes the capital of pizza. The curtain opens on the 31st Pizza World Championship, the most important event dedicated to professionals and organized in Parma from today, 9th to 11th April at the Palaverdi, located inside the Exhibition Center, in the heart of the Food Valley.
The event, underlines the official statement, “A moment of confrontation between professionals and fans of pizza with thematic topics, aims to stimulate the curiosity of professionals and fans to come and discover the air of real sharing, passion, a stimulus to new ideas and recipes, of openness to the future of their business, trends, the importance of ethics, inclusion, and hospitality with a careful and independent look at what is happening in the world of pizza”.
The new edition is attended by 718 competitors, including master pizza makers and chefs, representing 55 nations: Italy is the lion’s share with 56% of representatives. Foreign nations include Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, Eire, El Salvador, United Arab Emirates, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Hong Kong, India, Kenya and Kuwait. There will be 1,038 races, of which 957 are cooking: in the latter, the classic pizza in its variations will have 531 interpretations while there are more than 100 for each of the other categories, such as pizza in the shovel, in the pan, pizza in two (a collaboration between pizza maker and chef).
The pizza to two is the category that has had the greatest increase with 200 professionals who will bring, in collaboration, their creation. There are also competitions of skill, with freestyle and the spectacular acrobatic exhibition with pizza dough discs to the rhythm of music and important and representative partners of the sector with their stands to propose products and novelties. The nations represented and competing are in all 55.
The proposal for discussion and stimulation among the various operators and enthusiasts will focus, with meetings and appointments, on the keywords internationality and sustainability, the latter in particular addressed with the Special Award dedicated to Sustainability ‘The pizza of change’ made in collaboration with the flour ‘The 5 Seasons’ of Agugiaro & Figna Molini and evaluates competitors with a series of criteria, including the use of raw materials from sustainable agriculture and low impact and typical products PDO and PGI in pizza preparations.
The Pizza World Forum is also scheduled in the calendar of discussions and reflections, open in the sessions of the Area seminars and with a common thread the terms welcome, ethics, and inclusion. The Pizza World Forum will aim to build, through the contribution of experts in the field and the food world, a “Manifesto of the relational pizzeria” divided into 10 points that will contain indications on how to make a pizzeria, welcoming, ethical, and inclusive.
