Pizzeria resolves misery of cold delivery

Technology has solved one of the enduring miseries of modern life, by finding a way of keeping a takeaway pizza piping hot for up to 40 minutes while it is on the back of a moped.

Technology has solved one of the enduring miseries of modern life, by finding a way of keeping a takeaway pizza piping hot for up to 40 minutes while it is on the back of a moped.

Fast-food customers who have the temerity to demand hot grub have a heat-sensitive chemical to thank.

This chemical, which is placed in a rubber disc, can keep a pizza as hot as it was when it came out of the oven, during the time it takes for the food to be delivered to the customer's front door.

Domino's Pizza, the first company to introduce the half-baked technology next month, promises that the pizza will taste as good at home as it would if it were served in a restaurant, a promise some may find irresistible.

The company explained that the solid disc was heated in an oven, triggering a chemical reaction that emitted heat while it was being delivered, and keeping the temperature in the pizza bag at about 77C.

As a further refinement to the delicate art of pizza delivery, the bag itself is made of a material that is designed to soak up unwanted moisture and so prevent the pizza from becoming soggy. A spokesman for Domino's Pizza, Chris Moore, said: "Any pizza delivery company will probably tell you that the number one complaint they receive is about lukewarm or cold pizza.

"The one thing customers enjoy the most about eating pizza is the taste and texture they get when it's oven hot."

Domino's Pizza claims the heat-emitting disc is the latest development in a long tradition of pizza technology, which has given us the conveyor oven, the insulated hot bag and, perhaps most memorable of all, the corrugated pizza box.