The Ridiculous Amount Of Cheese Costco Uses On Its Food Court Pizzas

A Costco food court pizza is arguably unbeatable for the price when you consider the serving size and the fact that the pie is made fresh. To boot, the price has remained largely unchanged since the item was first introduced in 1989. While $1.99 for a giant slice is a bargain, getting a whole Costco pizza works out to an even cheaper bill. To ensure that every bite of that 18" pizza has gooey cheesy deliciousness, the Costco employees cover the pie with a rather shocking amount of cheese. Watch a pie being made in one of the legendary food courts and you will see cheese being measured out before being spread evenly on a sauced base. It's a lot of cheese, to be sure, but it's also always an exact amount.

The cheese pizza gets a pound and a half of cheese, while the pepperoni pizza gets significantly less. This helps answer the enduring question that's often confused Costco pizza fans about why the pepperoni pizza, which still contains a hearty amount of meat and cheese, has fewer calories than the cheese pizza. Meanwhile, the mix of cheese used by Costco remains heavily debated, though we do have a good guess as to which cheeses go into making that giant cheesy Costco pie.

An entire Costco cheese pizza is topped with 24 ounces or 1.5 pounds of cheese. Since the pizza is cut into six portions when you buy it per slice, each slice has roughly 4 ounces of cheese. By contrast, the food court's pepperoni pizza has 14 ounces of cheese but also gets 60 pieces of pepperoni (about 10 per slice). In terms of calories, a slice of cheese pizza packs in 710 calories while the pepperoni has about 650 (now we know where all those extra calories in the former come from).

While the exact proportions of each type of cheese in Costco's pizza cheese mix remains under debate, people have posited on multiple forums that it is a blend of mozzarella, provolone, and parmesan. This would be an ideal mixture of cheeses for a pizza, with mozzarella adding creaminess, provolone gives a touch of smoked cheese flavor, and parmesan its signature nuttiness. Considering the large quantity of cheese used, it makes even more sense to use a blend instead of just one type for added flavor and variety of texture. 

While Costco obviously sources its cheese wholesale, the quantity of cheese used on a pie combined with the low price the pizza is sold at could mean that the company barely makes a profit from its sale. In fact, the pizza could be part of Costco's loss-leader strategy, which is also partly why its iconic hot dog combo still sells for $1.50.