Hawaiian pizza reigns supreme as world says goodbye to its inventer

If you always go for Hawaiian when choosing your type of pizza, today is a day to reflect and give thanks.

The man who invented the pineapple pizza delight has died on June 8, age 83.

Sam Panopolous emigrated to Canada from Greece with his brothers in 1954 and opened several restaurants. Most Canadians didn’t even know pizza was a thing back then.

Panopolous created the pineapple dish way back in 1962 but he even admitted nobody liked it at first.

Talking to Canadian broadcaster CBC in February this year Panopolous said at first it was just an experiment. “Along the way, we threw some pineapples on it and nobody liked it at first,” he said. “But after that, they went crazy about it. Because in those days nobody was mixing sweets and sours and all that. It was plain, plain food.”

There have been infamous pineapple on pizza stories over the years, but none more so than when the Iceland president Gudni Johannesson said he wanted to ban it. Of course, Mr Panopolous came to its defence, which ended up in a Team Pineapple campaign on social media.

The Canadian Prime Minister made sure everyone knew he was a fan, tweeting ‘I have a pineapple. I have a pizza. And I stand behind this delicious Southwestern Ontario creation. #TeamPineapple’.

Are you a yes or a no to pineapple on pizza?