Picture this: it’s Friday night at dinner time, and your friend says to you, “let’s order pizza! Do you like pineapple on it?” It may seem like an innocent question, but it could cause a serious issue if your answers differ. Hawaiian pizza may seem like just a type of pizza, but people have strong feelings about pineapple as a topping. I recently observed that this simple, sweet topping has caused some controversy, dividing pizza lovers and ruining friendships (kinda). Since it is a hot topic, I wanted to do some local investigating to discover how my community views these golden morsels atop sauce and cheese. So, how does the Bryant community feel about pineapple on pizza?
The Research Methodology
First, I want to discuss the details of how the study was conducted since I am an economics major and conducting studies for significant results is pretty much all I do. I’m sorry, but I just can’t resist.
Here at Bryant, there are about 3700 undergraduate students. I cannot find the number for faculty and staff on the school website, so I rounded to an even 4000. With a population of 4000, I chose a sample size of 630 people, which is about 15%, but more importantly, as any good economics student will tell you, the sample must be representative of the population.
So, to ensure that my sample included every unique part of the Bryant community, I went full force and explored every part of campus where I could potentially find students. I made sure to survey students from each grade level, as well as athletes (such as members of the football, baseball, field hockey, women’s soccer teams, etc.), international students, members of Greek Life, and as many other clubs/organizations as I could find (including but not limited to: MSU members, dance teams, RA’s, ACE tutors, commuters, Student Senate, etc). I also made sure to ask some faculty and staff wherever I went.
The question was simple, “Do you like pineapple on your pizza?”
The Results
Yes: 309
No: 321
The No’s have it! However, it was a tight race. My hypothesis going into this study was that it would be more of a 70/30 split no-to-yes, but these results are just about 50/50 (or 49/51 if you want to get technical).
People who voted “no” were generally very strongly against this topping, while the people who voted “yes” were generally more indifferent to it. Most people who voted yes, with the exception of two people, told me that it was not their favorite topping, but they enjoy it occasionally.
Many people told me that they only like the pineapple topping when it is paired with bacon, which I personally have never tried before. Others were adamant that it has to be with ham—a classic Hawaiian pizza. Only one person told me that they like it alone on the pizza. Some people also told me that they only like it with Alfredo sauce or white sauce instead of tomato sauce.
When I asked our own President Machtley, he said, “I do not think I have ever had pineapple on pizza…” but “it sounds interesting.” Mrs. Kati Machtley also commented that she has never tried it, but she would be willing to have a slice because “it is always good to try new things.” Provost Sulmasy told me that he did not have a strong opinion either way and would prefer to “defer to [the] expert opinions of the students” on this topic.
For those of you who do like Hawaiian pizza, Ronzio’s on campus does have pineapple available as a topping. If you don’t, well then continue to avoid it. My only request is that we can all exist peacefully together and respect each others’ differing opinions.
For those of you who do like Hawaiian pizza, Ronzio’s on campus has pineapple available as a topping. If you don’t, well then continue to avoid it. My only request is that we can all exist peacefully together and respect each others’ differing opinions.
Thank you to all who participated in this study. Go books, go pizza (without pineapple apparently), go bulldogs.