Pizza has long been a steady driver of cheese demand in the U.S., but recent data suggests growth in the category has slowed. After expanding for much of the past two decades, the number of pizza restaurants has flattened, and per capita cheese consumption has followed a similar pattern.
“The number of pizza restaurants in the United States, after surging at various points over the past 20 years, has really flattened out over the past four,” says Phil Plourd, head of market intelligence for Ever.Ag, during the 2026 Dairy Market Outlook: Trends, Risks, and What Comes Next webinar. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our rolling measure of per capita cheese use has flattened out over the same period.”
For years, growth in pizza restaurants coincided with rising cheese consumption. That relationship now appears to be stabilizing.
“So, all this pizza restaurant growth we saw was concurrent with per capita cheese consumption increases,” Plourd says. “Now have we kind of hit ‘mature’ with pizza?”
Signs of a More Mature Pizza Market
That question is being raised across the restaurant industry as well. According to The Wall Street Journal, analysts are debating whether the U.S. has reached peak pizza. Once the second-most common restaurant type in the country, pizzerias are now outnumbered by coffee shops and Mexican food restaurants. Pizza sales growth has also lagged in the broader fast-food category for several years, and expectations for near-term growth remain limited.
At the same time, pizza remains a significant part of the U.S. foodservice market. Reports indicate pizza chains generated about $31 billion in restaurant sales in 2024, according to market‑research firm Technomic. On any given day, roughly one in 10 Americans eats a slice of pizza, based on USDA estimates, with younger consumers accounting for a large share of that demand.
However, pizza’s relative position within the restaurant industry has declined. Among different cuisines, pizza ranked sixth in U.S. sales among restaurant chains in 2024, down from second place in the 1990s, according to Technomic. Data from Datassential shows the number of pizza restaurants in the U.S. reached a record high in 2019 and has declined since then.
Competition, Cost and Saturation
Several factors could be contributing to the slowdown. One is increased competition in food delivery.
“In a world where we can pick up our phone and order just about any food into our house from just about anywhere with four button pushes, that used to be pizza’s domain,” Plourd says. “Pizza owned that space for a long time. Well, in a world of DoorDash and other services, there’s competition.”
Price has also become a consideration.
“I think pizza has kind of gotten expensive in the post-COVID era,” Plourd adds.
Another factor is saturation. Pizza is widely available across the country, including in rural areas that once had limited access.
“The other thing is that there’s nowhere in America today where you can’t get a hot pie,” Plourd says.
He points to Casey’s as an example. The convenience store chain now has close to 3,000 locations, roughly double its footprint in 2010, and sells about 40 million pizzas per year. About 66% of Casey’s stores are located in towns with populations of 20,000 or fewer.
“For places where you’d previously have to go 50 or 100 miles to get a pizza, now the Casey’s is right there downtown,” Plourd says. “We give Casey’s credit for bringing pizza to rural America. But now it’s quite possible that there’s nowhere else to take it.”
That saturation helps explain why per capita cheese consumption has leveled off alongside pizza restaurant growth. Pizza remains a major driver of mozzarella demand, but without continued expansion in locations or sales, growth tied to pizza has slowed.
Looking ahead, Plourd sees more opportunity outside the U.S.
“The good news here is that the Koreans and the Japanese, there’s space for growth pizza-wise outside the country,” he says.
While pizza continues to play an important role in U.S. foodservice and dairy demand, current trends suggest the category has reached a more mature phase, with future growth likely to be incremental rather than expansive.
