Pizza purveyors search for new ways to top their sales

      Kipp Horrocks is picking up a red, metal chair with a seat upholstered in deep blue. He puts it in front of him, sits down on the cushion with a posture as straight as a square of new cardboard, then lifts his feet and plants them on the ground in one hard "Thump."
      Horrocks gets up, sits down again, stiffens his back, spreads his feet apart -- "Thump."
      He motions to another man, Chris Schloemann -- tall, with short, blond hair and a stocky build. Schloemann picks up the chair, sits on it, settles in and nods.
      "We're trying to change our image," says Horrocks, who owns two Domino's Pizza franchises in Midland, Mich. "We're making (the stores) brighter, warmer."
      One week ago, Horrocks and his senior manager packed their summer shorts, cotton polo shirts, and left Middle America for their first-ever trip to the world's largest pizza convention -- Pizza Expo '97. They joined more than 4,600 pizza practitioners or just plain pizza-perusers for four days of power breakfasts, demonstrations, exhibitions and "mega seminars."
      The apex of this event, the pepperoni on its pizza slice, was the wheeling and dealing. Vendors, filling more than 800 booths at the Las Vegas Convention Center, plugged everything from prepackaged mushrooms to cherry-wheat beer. But, then, pizza is big business. According to a fact sheet from the National Association of Pizza Operators, Americans eat about 100 acres of pizza every day. Pizza-makers generate $30 billion a year, the association notes.
      After testing the chairs, Schloemann and Horrocks wander to another booth where a group has gathered around what looks like a microwave oven. The sign says: "Flashbake: Cooking with the speed of light."
      Inside the oven, a small pizza is rotating while being bathed in a blinding light. The salesman says the oven heats with halogen light and can cook a pizza in just a few minutes. Horrocks asks how high the temperature gets.
      "You can't think in terms of temperature," pipes back the salesman, who seems tired of answering the same questions. "It's intensity of light, intensity."
      Schloemann and Horrocks walk away. Intensity? Hmmm, ah yes, intensity.
      "You'd have to retrain customers," says Schloemann, bringing it all down to basics. "What would you think? I cook a pizza in two to three minutes and hand it to ya? It's too fast."
      Just around the corner is a booth manned by a heavy man dressed in a chef's uniform. The sign reads: "Cannoli Factory." Horrocks and Schloemann each dip their fingers into a pan filled with sweet, fried dough. As they walk a few more feet, a guy from Berner Cheese hands a small container of cheese sauce to Schloemann. The two men then hit a cheesesteak sandwich stand and dip into some sliced samples.
      "We just come here to eat," Schloemann jokes.
      They pass a woman demonstrating vegetable choppers. She's wearing a bright-green blouse with large, white polka dots; a microphone wraps around her cheek. Her words float away as they continue on to a small table lined with small, clear-plastic cups.
      Inside the cups are what look like thin credit cards. Written on each card are the words: "cocaine, opiate, THC, PCP and AMP." By each word is a long, white stripe. Two dark lines appearing on a stripe means negative, one line means positive, says the salesman. Sort of like a pregnancy test only a wider selection of conditions.
      An accompanying brochure reads: "At last! On-site drug screening that's user friendly!"
      The two men are captivated for a few moments but walk on. As they leave, a slim woman with dark hair stops at the booth and stares at the cups. Her eyes are pinched and she stands back a few feet, trying to discern what she's seeing. A man and a woman join her. The salesman gets their attention and starts the pitch.
      Horrocks and Schloemann squeeze through crowds of men and women dressed in suits and ties, jeans, shorts and tennis shoes. Everywhere they look there are trays of pizza wedges as vendors show off their toppings: mushrooms, pineapple, sausage, black olives, pepperoni, green olives, sun-dried tomatoes, meatballs, ham, chicken, dehydrated garlic, Gangi Brothers pizza sauce, Hunts Angela Mia Prima Choice Crushed Tomatoes. The smells are everywhere.
      The two men walk past industrial-size machines that do everything to pizza dough but throw it from the top of a building: mix, weigh, slice, roll, press. A steel machine called the "Round O Matic" from the AM Manufacturing Co., a steel box with a large funnel on top, is whirring. The salesman picks up a round dough ball the machine spits out and tosses it from hand to hand. He's talking to two guys who own a pizza house near Detroit: "Father and Son Pizzeria."
      Nearby, Horrocks finds the "Scale O Matic." It weighs and cuts dough then spits out 2,000 gooey balls an hour. It's about $20,000. He decides to find a used one.
      By noon the crowd is a continual stream of munching and sipping. Fingers are plucking breaded ravioli, chicken tenders, meatballs and frosted brownies from metal trays. Horrocks peeks into the demonstration tent. Schloemann asks, with his hand up to his throat: "Is there anything to drink in there?"
      It's been 2 1/2 hours of browsing. The two men have purchased a few hot boxes that keep food warm while it's being delivered, some plastic pizza carriers and about 2,000 plastic bags, at 6 1/2 cents each, designed to carry takeout pizzas and drinks. The next day they will pack their shorts and cotton polo shirts and leave the New York-New York resort.
      Back in Michigan, the pizzas will stay warmer, the takeout food will be easier to carry but the pizza will remain pretty much the same.
      Like Horrocks says: Everybody's got a gimmick that will come and go but "pizza never goes out."