It's sweet. It's salty. It's controversial. Behind the great pineapple-on-pizza debate.

In 2022, Via 313, an Austin, Texas-based pizzeria chain serving Detroit-style slices, shared an Instagram post announcing its new pineapple pizza. Using a halved pineapple as a base instead of crust, the pie featured a layer of “gooey” cheese and a generous sprinkling of caramelized pineapple rings, pepperoni and jalapeno.

The response couldn’t have been more mixed. “This looks amazing,” read one comment. “No … immediately no,” said another. Alas (or, fortunately, depending on where you stand on putting fruit on pizza), the pineapple pizza turned out to be an April Fools’ prank. But Via 313 does offer a Hawaiian pie topped with ham, bacon and the ever-polarizing pineapple — a fruit so contentious it prompted a British pizzeria to add a £100 surcharge (about $123) to orders requesting it as a topping. (“I absolutely loathe pineapple on a pizza,” Lupa Pizza co-owner Francis Woolf told the Norwich Evening News.)

While pineapple on pizza may be the target of much ire, its popularity is often underestimated. According to Pizza Today’s 2025 Pizza Industry Trends Report, based on surveys with pizzeria owners, pineapple is the 14th most popular pizza topping in the United States, beating out meatballs, jalapenos, banana peppers, spinach, fresh garlic, tomatoes and salami.

You’ll also find it at chef Renato Viola’s Mister 01 Extraordinary Pizza, a pizzeria chain in Florida, Georgia and Texas where customers can feast on the ham- and pineapple-flecked Hawaiiana — his take on the “Hawaiian” pizza created in 1962 by Sam Panopoulos, a Greek immigrant running a restaurant in Canada, on the heels of tiki culture and Hawaiian’s recent statehood. Though this pie isn’t quite as popular as other varieties, Viola tells Yahoo Life that many love the “sweet and savory combination.”

But it’s not for everybody. Even the late Panopoulos admitted that it took some convincing to get his creation off the ground. “Nobody liked it at first,” he told CBC Radio in 2017. More than 60 years later, people are still divided. Here’s why — and what experts say about the future of fruit on pizza.

Love vs. hate

According to a 2021 survey of 3,000 U.S. adults conducted by (for some reason) Adobe, Americans are fairly evenly split between those who are pro-pineapple on pizza (44%) and those who are firmly against it (41%). In a 2019 YouGov poll, just 12% of the 1,212 U.S. adults surveyed rated pineapple as their most favorite pizza topping, and 24% said it was their least favorite. People living in the Northeast were most likely to be anti-pineapple, whereas those in the West (including Hawaii) were most likely to love it.

That’s the case with Kristyana Pham. “Maybe it’s because I grew up on the West Coast, but I don’t remember pineapple on pizza being considered that weird back in the day,” Pham, now a marketing director based in New York City, tells Yahoo Life. In college, she’d order what she calls a “super-charged Hawaiian pizza,” featuring not just pineapple but olives, onions, green peppers and mushrooms too. “I love the sweet on top of the savory as well as the texture it adds to the mouthfeel,” she explains.

In the Adobe poll, the pineapple’s texture was considered one of its biggest flaws among those opposed to putting it on pizza. Other complaints: It’s too sweet, too juicy and, according to 54% of pineapple detractors, too warm.

Not so, says Clara, an interior designer in Minnesota who asked to not share her last name. She’s a self-proclaimed “warm pineapple girlie” who, like Pham, is a sucker for that sweet-and-salty combo. What she doesn’t love is that liking pineapple on pizza is considered so polarizing and that it’s been “turned into a basic trope,” Clara says, pointing to dating app discourse surrounding Hinge users who make the food preference part of their personality. “Everyone thinks it’s such a big deal, but it’s just a topping on your pizza.”

Not at East Village Pizza, the New York City pizzeria where you can get a pie topped with BBQ chicken or baked ziti, but no fruit. Frank Kabatas tells Yahoo Life he no longer sells pineapple-enhanced pizza as a matter of taste — “it leaves a very tangy taste that overpowers the other ingredients on the pie,” he notes — and logistics.

“Operationally, pineapple is a difficult topping to handle,” he explains. “It has to be stored in its juice or else it dries out and is no longer good. When you’re putting pineapple on pizza, it’s important to first squeeze as much of that excess juice out of the fruit as you can, so that it won’t make the pizza crust soggy or affect the crispiness of the pie. This is a process that can be tedious and very time-consuming. For example, when it is a Friday night and you’re making 50 pies in a row, smooth and efficient operations are key.” A Hawaiian pie order, he adds, disrupts this flow and takes extra time to make. If customers are craving a sweet-and-salty combo, he looks to sweet peppers instead.

It’s not going away

Pineapple on pizza isn’t for Rick Hynum, editor in chief of the trade magazine PMQ Pizza. “I don’t get the appeal and never have,” he tells Yahoo Life. (His other professional quibble: Dipping pizza in ranch sauce.)

“But everybody has different tastes,” Hynum notes. Some like to mix it up; some don’t. “I guess purists feel like there's no need to tamper with perfection by adding a sweet, fruity, tropical element to your pizza,” he says. “In Italy, it's even more controversial. But the pizza tradition there dates further back than it does in the U.S., so their commitment to tradition is even more solidified. But, honestly, I think it's mostly just fun to argue about.”

And PMQ Pizza is happy to cover every beat of the debate, from the banana and curry pizza sold in Sweden to the chef in Naples, Italy, the birthplace of pizza, whose countrymen were aghast when he put pineapple pizza on his menu. “People got all worked up about it, but that was good for business — he got a ton of free publicity just from that one topping,” says Hynum.

That same chef later unveiled a pizza with watermelon on it. The slow creep of other fruit toppings may mean that pineapple will one day soon no longer be considered quite so controversial. According to the 2025 State of the Pizza Nation report released by the Alive & Kickin’ Pizza Crusts brand, berries are having a moment: “Foodies are treating pizzas like grazing boards, adding cranberries, blueberries, raspberries and more to balance out savory meats and creamy cheeses,” the report reads.

Hynum is also seeing a rise in pickle-topped pizzas, including the limited edition pineapple-and-pickle pie created by DiGiorno in 2023. (Those who missed out will have to settle for the frozen pizza brand’s standard Hawaiian.)

Does pineapple make pizza healthier?

Generally speaking, folks eat pizza because they like it — not because they think it’s healthy. But does adding pineapple (or any fruit, for that matter) to your slice tip the scales from indulgent to nutritious?

Sort of. “Pineapple is a healthy choice,” Claire Edgemon, a dietitian at Baylor College of Medicine, tells Yahoo Life. If using canned pineapple, Edgemon recommends choosing pineapple packed in water or juice rather than syrup, which contains added sugar. "I am not as concerned with the natural sugar in the pineapple because when you eat the whole fruit, you are also getting fiber,” she says.

There are nutritional benefits that come with piling on the pineapple. “Since pineapple is a fruit, it is low in calories and it provides fiber and a variety of vitamins and minerals,” says Edgemon. That includes vitamin C, a variety of B vitamins (B1, B3, B6 and folate) and minerals such as manganese, copper, potassium and magnesium. She adds: “Pineapple is the only fruit that contains bromelain, which is an enzyme that has been shown to decrease inflammation, pain and swelling.”

Another bit of good news for Hawaiian pizza lovers: Ham is preferable to pepperoni, Edgemon notes. “As a topping, ham and pepperoni both provide similar amounts of protein, vitamins and minerals. Pepperoni typically is higher in calories, sodium and saturated fat compared to ham, so from a nutrition perspective, ham is the way to go,” she says.

Before you kickstart your Hawaiian pizza-only diet, heed Edgemon’s warning that because pizza is a high-calorie food, it’s best enjoyed in moderation. That said, “anytime you can boost the nutrient value it’s a win,” she adds. That runs the gamut from using a cauliflower crust, swapping high-sugar sauce for crushed tomatoes, loading up on veggies or adding fruit. “If the pizza is full of vegetables and/or fruit, you might use less meat, which can reduce calories, sodium and saturated fat,” she says.

Edgemon herself, however, won't be ordering pizza with pineapple, but not because of nutrition. “I don’t like my meal to be sweet.”