Goal-den Crust: Nearly 90,000 Pizza Pans Needed to cover a FIFA Football Pitch

Match-day maths reveals how many pizza pans it would take to cover a standard football pitch ahead of England v Croatia on Wednesday 17 June.

As England prepare for their match with Croatia, a West Midlands based manufacturer and supplier of light catering equipment - Chef Set Ltd has tackled a very different kind of match-day challenge: just how many 12-inch pizza pans would it take to cover an entire football pitch?

The answer is...

With World Cup fever expected to drive close to £900 million* in additional spending across UK pubs, bars, restaurants and venues, Chef Set has calculated that using a standard football pitch and a staggered honeycomb layout, nearly 90,000 pizza pans would be needed to cover the playing surface from end to end, proving that when it comes to pizza, this really is a game of two halves.

The calculation was carried out using Chef Set's professional 12-inch non-stick pizza pans, arranged in the most efficient formation possible. While England will be hoping to find the back of the net, Chef Set's maths team found enough pans to fill a whole pitch instead.

Simmie Korotane, Communications Director at Chef Set Ltd, said: “With England in action, we thought we’d put our own spin on match-day preparations. Football and pizza are both crowd-pleasers, so bringing them together felt like a natural fit.

“We knew the final figure would be big, but discovering it would take nearly 90,000 12-inch pizza pans to cover a football pitch was a real slice of surprise.”

Whether it’s catering for a local team, a packed restaurant or a major hospitality venue, Chef Set's professional pizza range includes pizza pans, dough boxes, tiered racks and other essentials ready for kick-off.

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Notes to editors

* Research conducted by GlobalData on behalf of VoucherCodes.co.uk - 2026 FIFA World Cup Spending Report

The calculation is based on a standard football pitch measuring 105 m × 68 m, giving a total pitch area of 7,140 m².

The pizza pan used in the calculation is a 12-inch circular pan, with a diameter of 30.48 cm.

Pans are circular, therefore the calculation does not simply divide the pitch area by the area of one pan.

The calculation uses a staggered honeycomb layout, on a flat surface without overlap. Empty gaps between the circular pans are left empty and not counted.

In this layout:

Pan diameter: 0.3048 m
Horizontal spacing: 0.3048 m, as pans touch side by side
Vertical row spacing: 0.3048 × √3 ÷ 2 = 0.26397 m, rounded to 0.264 m
Rows across pitch width: 68 ÷ 0.264 ≈ 257 rows
Pans per row: alternating rows fit 344 and 343 pans

The final calculation is:

129 rows × 344 pans = 44,376 pans
128 rows × 343 pans = 43,904 pans

Total: 88,280 pizza pans

Media contact:

Simmie Korotane, Communications Director, Chef Set Ltd.  Simmie@chefset.co.uk / 0121 3566858

About Chef Set Ltd

Established in 1978, Chef Set Ltd is a UK manufacturer, importer and distributor of professional light catering equipment, supplying distributors and wholesalers serving the hospitality and foodservice sectors in the UK and overseas.

For sales enquiries: Sales@chefset.co.uk | 0121 356 6858
https://chefset.co.uk