Did You Know There’s a Northern Michigan Pizza Burial Ground?
I've always said there is no such thing as a bad pizza, but maybe there is because there's a pizza burial ground in Northern Michigan.
Have You Heard of Ossineke, Michigan?
I only know of Ossineke, Michigan, because I rode my motorcycle along the East Coast and saw the road signs when visiting Thunder Bay for the first time. I knew they had a Paul Bunyan statue there but knew nothing about the Great Michigan Pizza Funeral and Pizza Burial.
Northern Michigan's Pizza Burial Ground
I saw a post on Reddit asking, "Is there a grave marker for the Great Pizza Funeral?" I had never heard of the event so I did some digging and there is no grave marker.
The story behind the Great Pizza Funeral and Burial started in 1973 when just under 30,000 pizzas had to be destroyed.
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Pizza manufacturer, Papa Fabbrini, was owned and run by Ilario "Mario" Fabbrini and his wife in Ossineke, Michigan. The two worked on authentic pizza recipes that a factory made and were sold to grocery stores as frozen pizzas.
Fabbrini received contaminated mushrooms from the United Canning Company in Palestine, Ohio, used to make mushroom and cheese pizzas. The FDA did some testing and confirmed the mushrooms had botulism. Fabbrini was ordered to recall the 30,000 pizzas.
Fabbrini wanted to show the public he was accountable for the bad pizzas by having a public funeral/burial where four dump trucks unloaded the nearly 30,000 frozen pizzas still wrapped in cellophane. It was quite the grave since it was 18 feet deep but unfortunately, there is no headstone, but feel free to leave a slice for your "Homme" if you're ever in Ossineke.
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