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A 14-inch pizza gets about 7 to 8 ounces of cheese, a 12-inch about 5 to 6 and a 16-inch about 9 to 10.7, according to two portion charts published in the pizza trade press. At the $1.60-a-pound block price USDA reported on Nov. 2, every one of those ounces costs about a dime before your distributor adds its share. That makes cheese portioning one of the cheapest places to find food cost on the make line: nobody has to pay more, and nobody has to get less than your spec.
Two published charts, about an ounce apart
The first comes from Mark Todd, a cheese education consultant who works as “The Cheese Dude,” in a 2024 PMQ piece on cheese profitability: 5 ounces on a 12-inch, 7 on a 14-inch, 9 on a 16-inch and 11 on an 18-inch. The second is the late Tom Lehmann’s worked example in Pizza Today. He starts with 6 ounces on a 12-inch, which works out to 0.0530785 ounces per square inch, then 8.16 ounces on a 14-inch and 10.66 on a 16-inch.
Both are area math. A 16-inch pie has 201 square inches to a 12-inch’s 113, about 78% more, and Todd’s rule of thumb is that it needs 75% more cheese for coverage. Build a spec by feel, one size at a time, and the sizes drift apart. The same arithmetic sets your dough ball weights.
On PMQ’s Think Tank, Lehmann put the practical minimum at 3.75 ounces on a 12-inch and the most common amount he’d seen at 6.5 ounces. His advice to operators: “find a cheese amount that works best for them.” The chart is a starting point. Your spec is the number you write down and hold.
What each pie costs in cheese at this week’s block
Most pizza cheese is priced off the CME block, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s wholesale cheddar price, plus a distributor’s markup. We covered how that markup works and why nobody publishes it. Blocks closed at $1.60 on Nov. 2, after averaging $1.7385 the week of Oct. 19 and touching $1.80. At $1.60, a pound is 16 ounces at 10 cents each.
Here’s the cheese cost per pie at that block price, before any markup. The 10-inch figures are our area scaling of each chart, and every dollar figure is our arithmetic.
| Pie | Todd (PMQ) | Cost at $1.60 | Lehmann (Pizza Today) | Cost at $1.60 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10” | 3.5 oz | $0.35 | 4.2 oz | $0.42 |
| 12” | 5 oz | $0.50 | 6 oz | $0.60 |
| 14” | 7 oz | $0.70 | 8.2 oz | $0.82 |
| 16” | 9 oz | $0.90 | 10.7 oz | $1.07 |
Your invoice will be higher. In a Pizza Today piece on pricing extra cheese, Andolini’s owner Mike Bausch worked his example at a $3-a-pound mozzarella price. Run the table at your own delivered price per ounce, not the block.
The free-thrown ounce is the expensive one
A shop selling 1,000 pies a week with each one an ounce heavy is giving away about 62 pounds of cheese a week. At a $1.60 block, that’s about $100 a week, or $5,200 a year, before markup. An illustration, not a benchmark, but the math scales with your volume.
Industry consultant Dave Ostrander told operators at the North American Pizza and Ice Cream Show, as Fast Casual reported, that the difference between 7 and 10 ounces of cheese can be 60 cents a pizza, and that a 30-day portioning pilot saved about 200 pounds of cheese worth $1,200, which went to the crew as a bonus. Those are 2014 prices. In his own shop, he told Pizza Today, weighing every portion cut cheese usage by 20 percent, “over 200 pounds a week.”
Small misses are big percentages, too. Half an ounce over Todd’s 5-ounce 12-inch is 10% more cheese on that pie.
Nobody notices an extra ounce of cheese on one pie. Your cheese invoice notices it on every pie.
Weigh it, or cup it by weight
Ostrander’s system cost almost nothing: he bought several hundred 22-ounce rubber cups from a dollar store, and as part of daily prep, “we weighed out our cheese just like we weighed out our dough balls.” The same Pizza Today piece calls a built-in digital scale on the make line the most accurate method. Lehmann pointed Think Tank readers to suppliers: he had soft plastic portioning cups from both Grande and Leprino on his desk and suggested asking your cheese supplier for some.
A cup is only as good as the weight it was filled to. A scoop of loose shred isn’t a portion. Lantern Pizza Co.’s Dan Coudreaut told PMQ his shop uses a scale and a clean bowl so the team can practice and learn the feel of the portion. Todd was blunter: “if you’re not using a scale, you’re shortchanging yourself and your customers.”
Then price the extras off the same spec. Bausch’s rule is half the base portion for extra cheese: “If your pizza has eight ounces of cheese, extra cheese would be four ounces.” A spec in ounces is what lets you put a real cheese line into what a pizza costs you to make.
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The limitation: neither chart says exactly which cheese it assumes, and neither covers fresh mozzarella, sliced cheese or a blend with provolone. Lehmann used 4 ounces of fresh mozzarella on a 12-inch where he’d use 7 of shred, so the chart doesn’t transfer. And USDA publishes the cheddar block, not the mozzarella you buy. Until your distributor tells you your spread over block, the cost column above is the floor of what each pie costs you in cheese, not the price.
Common questions
How many ounces of cheese go on a 14-inch pizza?
About 7 to 8 ounces. Cheese consultant Mark Todd's chart in PMQ says 7, and Tom Lehmann's worked example in Pizza Today comes to about 8. Pick a spec, write it down and weigh it.
How much cheese goes on a 12-inch and a 16-inch pizza?
Mark Todd's chart in PMQ says 5 ounces on a 12-inch and 9 on a 16-inch. Tom Lehmann's Pizza Today example uses 6 on a 12-inch and about 10.7 on a 16-inch. The 16-inch has nearly 78% more surface, so it needs nearly that much more cheese.
How much does the cheese on a pizza cost?
At the $1.60 a pound block price USDA reported on Nov. 2, cheese runs about a dime an ounce before your distributor's markup. That's about 70 to 80 cents on a 14-inch. Your mozzarella invoice will be higher than the block.
Should a pizzeria weigh cheese or use portion cups?
Both work if the cups are filled by weight. Dave Ostrander told Pizza Today he weighed cheese into cups during prep, the same way he weighed dough, and cut his cheese use by 20%. Pizza Today called a built-in scale on the make line the most accurate method.
