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| A pizza. |
Funerals are, no doubt, a very somber event. However, in some cases, they can be surprisingly entertaining. Such is the case of the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral, when 29,188 frozen cheese-and-mushroom pizzas were “ceremonially” disposed of.
One truly does feel for those poor pizzas.
The tale of the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral begins with the owner of the pizzas, Ilario Fabbrini. Fabbrini had moved from Croatia after living under the Communist regime there, and opened up Papa Fabbrini Pizzas, one of the most advanced pizza factories in the country, employing over 22 people and producing over 45,000 pizzas a week. After emigrating from Croatia, Frabrini had perfected his pizza recipe, creating a combination of his original Croatia style pizza and refitting them to be more palatable for an American audience.
In January 1973, it was noted by employees at the United Canning Company that a few cans of mushrooms were swelling. Such swelling is often considered to be a sign of bacterial contamination.
And this made sense, as the canning company had recently switched to automated canning machines to reduce costs. Because it was the 1970s, these machines were far from being perfect. They were often less than sanitary, and could accidentally overfill a can.
Seeing the swelling in the cans, the FDA was notified, and a series of tests were performed on the cans, and what do you know – they can back positive for botulism.
For those unaware, botulism is a disease, although not particularly deadly nowadays, was more difficult to treat in the 1970s. Back then, botulism relied on clinical diagnosis and tests would have to be conducted via a process known as mouse bioassay. This process was both costly and took an entire day. Even today, botulism has a ~7.5% mortality rate.
The cans, and subsequently, on February 19, 1973, Fabbrini also received word from the FDA, informing him of the fact that he was to recall his pizzas.
Fabbrini would come to recall over 30,000 pizzas, totaling over $30,000 in costs, and $60,000 in retail.
This had been the largest recall of pizza in the US at the time.
However, Fabbrini, being someone who was able to make the best out of a poor scenario, decided to publicly organize a funeral for his pizza.
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| Ilario Fabbrini, owner of the frozen pizza manufacturer, watches the pizza burial. |
On March 5, 1973, Fabbrini would hold his pizza funeral. The village where the factory was, Ossineke, had only a population of 1,800, however, over several hundred people attended the event, Michigan governor William Milliken being one of them. Despite the media reporting that 40,000 or 44,000 pizzas were involved with the funeral, in later documents, Fabbrini reported that only 29,188 were buried (I wonder how he knew this specifically). The remaining pizzas were served to the attendees, and after one customer questioned the safety of the pizzas, Fabbrini supposedly said: “Gov. Milliken ate a piece and he's still alive.”
In the aftermath of the incident, Fabbrini would file a lawsuit against United Canning and Tolono Pizza Products. He would win in 1979, being rewarded with $211,000, though roughly a third of the fees went towards paying the legal fees.
Unfortunately, Fabbrini would sell the business in 1980 for the meager price of $5000.
When later tests were conducted to test the validity of the original test, it was discovered that the lab rats used for the experience died of an unrelated case of peritonitis, not the alleged botulism.
Sources
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