The inventor of it was the gentleman you see in the photo, Sam Panopoulos (Sam from Sotiris)! Sam was born in 1934 in the village of Vourvora in Arcadia and at the age of 20, he immigrated to Canada!

In the province of Ontario, Canada, Sam opened the restaurant Satellite (which means Satellite) with his brothers. In this restaurant, they served classic American dishes such as burgers, fries, and American-Chinese dishes!

Sam tried pizza for the first time when he visited Canada, which had just started to become popular in the USA. Influenced by the sweet and sour flavors of the Chinese dishes he served at his restaurant, he began experimenting with pizza toppings!

Thus, in 1962, one of the ideas that struck him was to add pineapple to the pizza to give it that sweet and sour essence! This gastronomic invention of his was very popular among his customers! Later, pineapple pizza became a popular recipe in pizzerias worldwide!!!

The reason Sam named this pizza "Hawaiian" was because the pineapple he used came from a can whose brand was Hawaiian! Hawaii, by the way, became a state of the USA in 1959 - 3 years before Hawaiian Pizza was invented!!!

In general, in recent years, there has been an endless debate on the internet between people who either hate or love pineapple on pizza, which, to be honest, I don't understand. Personally, I neither love nor hate Hawaiian Pizza. I think there are pizzas with much more "unusual" toppings. If you eat rice with chicken with sweet and sour sauces (which usually have pineapple), I can't imagine how the concept of "pineapple on pizza" can seem so foreign and strange to you.

Unfortunately, Sam Panopoulos left us very recently, in 2017, in a hospital in Canada where he had been hospitalized! However, his fame in the pizza community will remain alive forever!