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Cheese and Onions

Posted by Adam Kuban, September 13, 2005 at 9:51 AM

Think there's no thought that goes into the type of onion that goes on your pizza? You better think twice, at least once more.

It turns out that some major pizza purveyors are turning to red onions instead of the yellow variety that has long been the preferred go-to guy in the Allium cepa family:

Bob Hale took a risk a decade ago, pulling up his yellow onions and planting red ones instead.

"Color is the new thing," he predicted. He was promptly ignored by the others farmers here at the heart of the nation's onion belt.

But Hale was proved right in 1997, when Pizza Hut took the plunge and switched from yellow to red onions on all its pizzas. Two years ago, Subway, the nation's largest selling sandwich chain, embraced red, saying they added a splash of color to subs.

Do I Have to Spell It Out?
It's obvious why the major chains are switching. The Forbes story says that the R&D wonks in the chain-pizza labs didn't like how the yellow onions blended in with the cheese and that consumers, when presented with two otherwise identical pies, overwhelmingly preferred the red-onion pie to the yellow.

Fast-food chains are discovering what gourmet chefs have long known — a dish's visual presentation is almost as important as its taste.

"Consumers, first of all, eat with their eyes," said Shirish Mehta, chief food innovations and technology officer for Dallas-based Pizza Hut Inc.

One of the drawbacks to the red onion? It's a bit more mild than the yellow. Or perhaps that's an advantage as well, depending on how strong you like your onions.

Restaurant Chains Switch to Red Onions [Forbes]
Photograph by Artemi Kyriacou

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