ND10031110

Title: Artisan Food Becomes Commonplace

Description: More restaurants and food makers are churning out mass-produced ?artisan? products.

Page Content:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. ? With the introduction of Artisan Pizza on the menu of Domino?s Pizza last week, artisan seems to have officially gone mainstream, the Los Angeles Times reports. Artisan used to mean a handcrafted product made in limited numbers, but nowadays, the food industry has taken over the term.

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Domino?s Pizza has joined other restaurants and supermarkets that offer artisan menu items, such as Wendy?s Artisan Egg Sandwich, Starbucks? Artisan Breakfast Sandwiches and Ralph?s line of Private Selection Artisan Breads.

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?The word 'artisan' has been so co-opted by industry and marketing that it no longer really means artisan,? said acclaimed baker and author Peter Reinhart.

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Domino?s Pizza defended its new Artisan Pizza line because of the use of better ingredients, such as feta cheese and Tuscan salami. These are ?pizzas you have with a bottle of wine,? said Russell Weiner, chief marketing officer. ?It's something where, before we launched, people would have laughed at us and wouldn't have believed we could do it.?

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But the pizza chain doesn?t want to turn off customers to whom artisan means snobby. To counter that perception, the pizza boxes bear the message: ?We're Not Artisans. We don't wear black berets, cook with wood-fired ovens or apprentice with the masters in Italy.?

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?The only thing artisan about the pizzas is the taste and fact that they're handmade, but there won't be attitude,? said Weiner.

Content Subject: Foodservice

Formatted Article Date: October 3, 2011

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