Pizza Day: Brazil opens 13 pizzerias a day, but buying a pizza weighs more and more on your pocket

Although the survey is restricted to the capital of São Paulo, it helps to portray one of the main consumer markets in the country. This is because, in addition to having the largest number of pizzerias in Brazil, São Paulo is traditionally considered the national capital of pizza, which makes the city an important thermometer for monitoring the relationship between prices, income and consumption. Weight of pizza in the budget According to the study, the rise in the price of pizza reflects, among other factors, the increase in the cost of inputs. The main one was mozzarella, which accumulated an increase of almost 40% between 2021 and 2025 and is one of the most important ingredients in the product. At the same time, income from work has not kept up with the increase in the population's cost of living, observes Rodolfo Ribeiro, one of the researchers responsible for the Mozarela Index. "We are living in a period of low economic growth, and this ends up putting pressure on families' budgets, especially those with lower incomes", he explains. This scenario appears quite unequally among the neighborhoods of the capital of São Paulo. In Alto de Pinheiros, the average income allows you to buy 313 pizzas per month, the highest rate in the city. In Anhanguera, this purchasing potential drops to 73 pizzas per month. The differences also appear in the prices charged by pizzerias. ? Pinheiros, Moema and Jardim Paulista have some of the most expensive pizzas in São Paulo, with medians of R$ 102.59, R$ 95.53 and R$ 93.49, respectively. ? Pedreira, José Bonifácio and Vila Jacuí record the lowest values, R$ 39.74, R$ 40.93 and R$ 41.15. According to the authors of the survey, this difference is linked to the characteristics of each local market. In peripheral regions, competition occurs mainly due to price. As they need to reconcile high production costs with consumers with lower purchasing power, entrepreneurs have little margin to use more expensive ingredients or invest in differentiators in the product and service. "Families' budgets are very limited, so a low price is essential for sales. This means that prices between different pizzerias vary very little from each other", highlights Ribeiro. In higher-income neighborhoods, the scenario is different. The greater purchasing power of consumers expands the possibilities for entrepreneurs to diversify the menu, ingredients and the way they sell their products. "Entrepreneurs have a greater 'degree of freedom' to decide what type of product they will offer and how they will offer it. This allows companies to test different commercial strategies and market niches", adds the researcher. More pizzerias, fewer closures The loss of family purchasing power, however, did not prevent the sector from expanding. While consumption became more pressured by the budget, the Brazilian pizzeria market continued to grow and reached, in 2025, its largest size ever recorded. Data from the Associação Pizzarias Unidas (Apubra) show that Brazil ended the year with 40,332 active pizzerias, an increase of 10.29% compared to the previous year. It was also the period with the lowest number of closures in the last decade: 2,969 companies closed their activities, a drop of 43.8% compared to 2024. The pace remained accelerated in 2026. Between January and May, 1,990 new pizzerias were opened, an increase of 6.1% over the same period last year. In practice, this means that the country started to gain, on average, a new pizzeria every two hours. According to Gustavo Cardamoni, president of Apubra, the numbers show that the sector continues to attract new entrepreneurs and maintains a consistent pace of expansion, even in the face of a challenging economic scenario. “This behavior reinforces the maturity of the segment and the confidence of businesspeople, who continue to invest even in a challenging economic scenario", he explains. Growth also stopped being concentrated only in large urban centers. Although the Southeast still accounts for 51% of Brazilian pizzerias and São Paulo remains the main hub for the sector, around three out of every four establishments opened in 2026 opened their doors outside the state of São Paulo. ? North and Northeast lead this proportional growth, indicating that the sector's expansion is advancing beyond traditionally more consolidated markets. In Cardamoni's assessment, the tendency is for this movement to continue in the coming years, but accompanied by an increasing level of professionalization among businesspeople. “It’s not just about opening new units, but about consolidating operations, with differentiation, efficient management and in-depth knowledge of the local market as decisive factors.” For Apubra, the combination of the drop in the number of closings and the increase in openings indicates a more mature market, in which expansion is accompanied by greater management capacity and consolidation of operations.