The man who put pineapple on pizza and called it, Hawaiian pizza, Sam Panopoulos
On a recent walk through Woodland Cemetery in London, Ontario, I visited the grave of the man who in 1962 at his restaurant in Chatham, Ontario, decided “for the fun of it” to put sliced canned pineapple on a pizza and call it Hawaiian. That man was Sam Panopoulos.
While working at his family’s Satellite Restaurant, Panopoulos—a Greek-Canadian—experimented with pizza toppings inspired by the sweet-and-savory contrasts he enjoyed in Chinese cuisine. He paired canned pineapple with ham, using canned fruit because fresh tropical fruit was expensive and difficult to find in small-town Ontario at the time. The name “Hawaiian,” he later explained, came simply from the brand of canned pineapple he used.
Panopoulos was constantly experimenting to attract customers to the restaurant he owned and operated with his two brothers. Initial reactions were skeptical; some customers told him he was “crazy.” Yet the idea endured and eventually became a global staple. Panopoulos never patented or trademarked his creation, viewing it at the time as “just another piece of bread cooking in the oven.”
Hawaiian pizza I ordered New Year’s Day 2026 from my local pizzeria. Thank you, Sam. υπέροχος!
Decades later, Hawaiian pizza has become one of Canada’s most famous culinary contributions. In 2024 and 2025 Canadian polls, it was crowned the country’s greatest pizza invention, with approximately 68% to 73% of Canadians approving of pineapple as a topping. In the United States, 59% of respondents say they “love” or “like” pineapple on pizza, while a majority of people in the United Kingdom (53%) also enjoy it—despite many Italians traditionally condemning it as a “culinary crime.”
Sotirios “Sam” Panopoulos died on June 8, 2017, in London, Ontario. He was 82.
1934-2017
See my site on another successful Greek-Canadian.
Andreas Apostolopoulos a Greek-Canadian Who went from labourer to billionaire
