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Amer­i­can pizza giant Domi­no’s have announced plans to open at least 880 new restau­rants across Italy by 2030.

The com­pany first opened for busi­ness in piz­za’s tra­di­tional home back in 2015 and already makes pizza at 28 loca­tions based in and around Rome, Milan and Turin.

Milan (which is con­ve­niently close to Domino’s dough fac­tory in Buc­ci­nasco) has been ear­marked as the loca­tion for the com­pa­ny’s first batch of new out­lets.

Domi­no’s has announced plans to open pizze­rias in cen­tral and north­ern Italy, but has so far steered clear of the south of the coun­try and the city of Naples; home of the iconic Neapoli­tan pizza.

Enzo Coc­cia — one of Naples’ most renowned piz­zaiolo (pizza maker) who runs a train­ing acad­emy and the city’s La Notizia pizze­rias — told Olive Oil Times that while Domi­no’s may bring new chal­lenges to tra­di­tional pizze­rias, he is not wor­ried about the arrival of the chain restau­rant.

“I think and hope that La Notizia’s cus­tomers won’t eat Domino’s Pizza,” Coc­cia said. ​“I think that they will not be pizze­rias’ com­peti­tors because the peo­ple know the dif­fer­ence between an arti­san prod­uct like Neapoli­tan pizza and an indus­trial prod­uct like the pizza of Domi­no’s.”

Naples’ tra­di­tional pizza twirling tech­nique piz­za­iuolo was granted world her­itage sta­tus in 2017.

Coc­cia said ​“the art of piz­zaiolo rep­re­sents the iden­tity of the peo­ple, our tra­di­tion and ter­ri­tory. It’s a prize for all peo­ple that dur­ing these years have done some­thing for this job and for the world of Neapoli­tan pizza.”

Italy’s min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture at the time hailed Neapoli­tan piz­za’s her­itage sta­tus as ​“another step toward the pro­tec­tion of Italy’s food and wine her­itage.”

Neapoli­tan pizza has also boasted Euro­pean Union ​“Tra­di­tional Spe­cial­ity Guar­an­teed” sta­tus since 2010.

“With a good and healthy prod­uct the pizze­rias in Italy will con­tinue to work,” Coc­cia said. ​“The Neapoli­tan piz­zaioli should safe­guard the sta­tus of their piz­zas and pro­tect the piz­za’s integrity.”

Last year the the health ben­e­fits of pizza were high­lighted when Ital­ian sci­en­tist Sil­vao Gal­lus won an ​“Ig Nobel Prize” for research which con­cluded that pizza offered pro­tec­tion against some chronic dis­eases.

Gal­lus stressed that the health ben­e­fits were only reaped when piz­zas were made with ingre­di­ents from the Mediter­ranean diet.

Domi­no’s entry into the Ital­ian mar­ket and cur­rent expan­sion plans were insti­gated by Alessan­dro Laz­za­roni, an Ital­ian entre­pre­neur and CEO of Domino’s Italy,

Accord­ing to a report in Money, Laz­za­roni, who bought the rights to dis­trib­ute Domi­no’s in his native coun­try, hopes to grab two per­cent of Italy’s pizza mar­ket over the next decade and aspires to expand Domi­no’s into the biggest food deliv­ery com­pany in Italy.

Back in 2015, the Amer­i­can pizza com­pany tempted con­sumers in Milan, Bres­cia, Berg­amo and Monza with their offer of, ​“tra­di­tional Ital­ian piz­zas” made from locally sourced ingre­di­ents.

At the time, Laz­za­roni focused on online order­ing and aimed to fill a gap in the Ital­ian mar­ket for take-out and deliv­ery options. Domi­no’s pledged to respect tra­di­tion and meet Ital­ian tastes.

It remains to be seen if Domino’s can com­pete against authen­tic Ital­ian pizza, which is believed to have been intro­duced to the United States by Ital­ian immi­grants back in 1905.

How­ever, in 2019 Domi­no’s pulled out of Ice­land, Nor­way and Swe­den after three years of heavy losses. The com­pany also with­drew from Switzer­land where it had served piz­zas since 2012.

• Daily Mail