Holiday Calendar

National Pepperoni Pizza Day

Next celebratedSunday, September 20, 2026

National Pepperoni Pizza Day settles the topping question before it comes up. Ask for a pie with nothing else on top, and give the first slice a moment before you pick it up.

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?
YEARLY DATESeptember 20
OBSERVED INUnited States
CATEGORYFood
SUBCATEGORYPizza
ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY
Not documented
FIRST OBSERVED
Not documented
HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

An unsigned entry on the American food calendar.

No founder, sponsor, or establishing document for the day has been located in the indexes checked, and the Federal Register carries nothing under its name.

+ Know the story? Submit a founder Help us complete this holiday
INTRO

A federal standard for America's favorite topping

The word looks Italian. The sausage is not. National Pepperoni Pizza Day belongs to a cured meat whose name traces back to the Italian word for a vegetable.

In Italian, peperone is the capsicum, the fruit eaten fresh as a vegetable, raw or cooked. Its plural is peperoni, and that is the form Treccani's own dictionary uses for peppers in a pan and peppers in vinegar. Ask for peperoni in Italy and you are asking for produce.

The American Heritage Dictionary puts it plainly. It files the word as "Originally an American Italian word (the pepperoni sausage style being unknown in Italy)".

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ORIGINS

Pepperoni Pizza Day history

INTRODUCTION

English has had the word longer than the sausage's usual origin stories allow. The Oxford English Dictionary records the noun's earliest known evidence in 1888, in the Times of London, and files it as apparently a borrowing from Italian.

When the sausage itself first appeared is a different question, and it is not settled. The trade title PMQ Pizza Magazine sets a 1919 New York claim against an earlier reference in a 1908 magazine. It takes neither as settled.

CHAPTER 01

What the government decided pepperoni is

The United States settled its own version of the question by writing the product down. USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service defines it in its labelling policy book as "A dry sausage prepared from pork or pork and beef."

The same entry sets a dryness limit. Pepperoni must finish at a moisture-to-protein ratio of 1.6 to 1 or less. The book is looser elsewhere, allowing salami 1.9 to 1 and Genoa salami 2.3 to 1.

The detail runs past composition. The casing, before stuffing, or the finished product, may be dipped in a potassium sorbate solution to retard mold growth.

CHAPTER 02

Ground fine and coloured on purpose

The look and the texture are both engineered. A meat-technology handbook puts the final grain of the meat and fat at 2 to 3 millimetres. Paprika is commonly added to give a touch of red within the product.

Before that the meat and fat go through the cutter coarse, at 4 to 5 millimetres. Salt runs to around 27 to 29 grams for every kilo of sausage mass.

CHAPTER 03

A date nobody has claimed

The observance has no comparable trail. Nothing under its name appears in the Federal Register, which leaves September 20 pointing at the sausage without explaining itself.

AT A GLANCE

Pepperoni at a glance

Water
28.6 g per 100 g, sliced
Fat
46.3 g per 100 g, sliced
Sodium
1,580 mg per 100 g
Casing
Easy-peel fibrous, 42 to 47 mm across
Fat in the mix
Around 30 to 35 percent before drying
Lost in drying
Around 30 percent of its weight

BY THE NUMBERS

National Pepperoni Pizza Day by the Numbers

24%
Americans naming pepperoni their favorite topping
64%
Americans who say they like pepperoni
$4.12
Pepperoni per pound, one shop, 2020

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about National Pepperoni Pizza Day

One product name USDA will not accept

The agency's entry for cooked pepperoni runs to a single line: "Cooked pepperoni is not an acceptable product name."

Hearts and tongues are ruled out by name

The federal standard says extenders and binders are not permitted in pepperoni, and that hearts, tongues, and other byproducts are not acceptable ingredients.

Cross 55 percent beef and the label changes

Combinations containing more than 55 percent beef must be sold as beef and pork pepperoni, and a version made with beef must be called beef pepperoni.

There is an unsmoked version with its own name

USDA's policy book also recognises frizzes, an acceptable name for something "Similar to pepperoni but not smoked" and held to the same moisture limit.

A cupped slice starts as a filling mistake

Gerhard Feiner's meat-technology handbook Salami instructs that back-rolling has to be avoided during filling as this can lead to cupping of the sliced product on the pizza.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Pepperoni Pizza Day

CONSENSUS

Almost nobody names pepperoni the topping they like least.

Pepperoni is the rare pizza topping that draws very little opposition, with fewer than 1 percent of Americans naming it their least favorite in a 2023 YouGov poll. Anchovies drew 29 percent in the same survey.

SAFETY

A parasite rule sits inside the definition

The federal standard does not only describe what pepperoni is made of. It also requires that pepperoni be treated for destruction of possible live trichinae before a label can carry the name.

LANGUAGE

A borrowed word that kept climbing

The Oxford English Dictionary tracks how often the noun turns up in written English, and around 1900 it barely registered. Its frequency rises at every decade point the dictionary lists, all the way to 2010.

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Pepperoni Pizza Day

EDITOR'S PICK

Bake a pizza and let the pepperoni crisp

Give the slices room rather than crowding them onto the dough. Pull the pie when the edges have gone dark, not when the cheese has merely melted.

ORDER

Order the plain one from a place you have walked past

A pepperoni pie has no long topping list to hide behind. Pick a pizzeria you have never tried and order the pepperoni on its own.

TASTE

Taste two kinds side by side

Delis and supermarkets stock more than one style of pepperoni. Buy two, cook them on the same pizza, and see which one you reach for.

READ

Read the federal standard for yourself

USDA publishes the rules a product must meet before a label can call it pepperoni. The entry sits in the agency's Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book, runs to a short paragraph, and is free to read.

BUY

Buy a whole stick and slice it yourself

Butcher counters and delis sell pepperoni in the stick rather than pre-sliced. Cut your own and you decide how thick each round goes.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Pepperoni Pizza Day?

1 / 8

In Italian, what does peperoni mean?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial observance with no legal standing found in the indexes checked, so shops, schools and offices keep their normal hours.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

10sources
7primary records
8independently dated
Primary records
USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service2026-05
Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book
The federal entries setting what a label may call pepperoni, salami and frizzes.
View source
USDA Agricultural Research Service2019-04
FoodData Central: Pepperoni, beef and pork, sliced
Analysed water, fat, protein and sodium figures for sliced pepperoni per 100 grams.
View source
Oxford English Dictionary
pepperoni, n.
The noun's Italian etymons, its earliest recorded use in 1888, and a per-decade frequency series.
View source
HarperCollins Publishers2022
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition: pepperoni
Files the word as an American Italian coinage for a sausage style unknown in Italy.
View source
Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
Vocabolario Treccani: peperone
The Italian entry for the capsicum plant and its fruit, eaten fresh as a vegetable.
View source
YouGov2023
Americans' favorite pizza topping is pepperoni. Their least favorite, by far: anchovies
A March 2023 poll of 1,000 US adults ranking favorite and least favorite toppings.
View source
YouGov2021
These are the most liked and disliked pizza toppings in America
A February 2021 poll of 6,168 US adults on liked toppings, disliked toppings and crust.
View source
Additional coverage
Elsevier2016
Pepperoni, an overview (ScienceDirect Topics)
Meat-technology chapters on how US pepperoni is fermented, cased and dried.
View source
Chicago Sun-Times2020-08
Pepperoni the latest food item in short supply due to pandemic
The August 2020 squeeze and the per-pound prices two pizzerias were paying.
View source
PMQ Pizza Magazine2024
Who Invented Pepperoni Pizza? The Answer Is Complicated
The trade press weighing a 1919 New York claim against an earlier 1908 reference.
View source
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