In Other Food Industry News

13% of Americans eat pizza on any given day:

But there's also a subtle policy angle here. Pizza is popular because it's delicious. But the roaring success of pizza isn't entirely a free-market story. "In recent years, [the USDA] has spent many millions of dollars to increase pizza consumption among U.S. children and adults," explains Parke Wilde of Tufts University, who runs the excellent U.S. Food Policy blog.
Here's what he's referring to. The USDA runs a "dairy checkoff program," which levies a small assessment on milk (15 cents for every hundredweight of milk sold or used in dairy products) and raised some $202 million in 2011. The agency then uses that money to promote products like milk and cheese. And, as it turns out, pizza.
The USDA claims its checkoff program has been well worth it: For every $1 that the agency spends on increasing cheese demand, it estimates that farmers get $4.43 in additional revenue. But the results have been mixed. Milk consumption has declined in recent decades, while cheese consumption has soared.

The post also says that food industry giants receive millions from the dairy checkoff, including Dominos getting $35 million to come up with stuffed crust pizzas that use more cheese, and money going to McDonald's for McCafe, and burgers with extra slices of cheese.

I wonder if that's why the government quit giving out cheese to the poor, because corporations weren't getting a slice of the pie, so to speak?