The police authority want to impress upon the public that 999 should only be called in the event of an emergency, with an emergency situation being defined as a one in which a crime or serious incident is in progress, or when there is a serious threat of injury or damage to persons or property. However the authorities have found that many callers have chosen to call emergency services because their mobile has run out or credit, or to ask for directions.

Worryingly, the police in Essex are increasingly receiving calls to 999 handlers which waste police time and could potentially prevent the emergency services from dealing with a genuine incident.

One of the more ridiculous requests received by the emergency handlers was from an intoxicated man who called 999 to ask if the police would collect a takeaway pizza from a nearby restaurant and bring it to his house as he was too drunk to drive himself.

In another nuisance phone call to the emergency services in Essex, a caller dialled 999 to report seeing a chef drop a burger on the floor of a takeaway restaurant, only to pick it up again and serve it to a customer, while a female caller rang the emergency number to ask police to remove a spider from her house.

A dozen pizzas and approximately the same number of pasta dishes were ordered from the Dom DeMarco’s Pizzeria and Bar which only opened its Las Vegas eatery last month. The pizza takeaway and restaurant is a spinoff from the famous DeMarco’s Di Fara Pizza which is something of an institution in the New York district of Brooklyn where it’s been serving up pizzas for over 45 years.

The large order of takeaway pizzas and pastas were delivered to the first floor of the Westin’s Element Hotel in Summerlin where Obama’s staff were staying, while two of the pizzas were sent up to the presidential suite where the president was staying.

According to Jeff LaPour, co-owner of DeMarco’s Pizzeria who served Obama’s pizzas during his Vegas visit, the president’s personal chef gave the pizzas his approval as he was reported to have given the takeaway food the thumbs up when sharing a few slices of pizzas with a fellow White House staff member.

So if you happen to find yourself in Las Vegas any time soon, be sure to treat yourself to a pizza takeaway approved by the president himself.

The team at the Domino’s Pizza takeaway in Bundaberg shot into the Guinness Book of World Records by making 837 pizzas in just one hour on Saturday night, meaning the pizza makers turned out more than 13 pizzas every minute in order to clinch the new record.

The record breaking team of pizza makers also clinched another title, this time a new Domino’s Pizza record for the most pizzas made and sold in a week after the branch churned out a whopping 25,000 pizzas in just seven days.

The store manager of the Bundaberg branch of Domino’s Pizza, Deeana Gatti, said her team were absolutely thrilled to have set not one, but two world records. The manager of the Queensland franchise said 120 team members from across Australia and also as far afield as New Zealand came together at the store for the record breaking attempt.

While the Domino’s Pizza branch succeeded in scooping two world records over the last week, they did miss out on a third record for the “most pizzas made in 24 hours by a team” which they narrowly avoided winning. However, not ones to be defeated, Bundaberg’s Domino’s Pizza are planning to re-attempt this record later in the year.

The Pizza express business vouchers can be forwarded to the recipients in a number of different formats including eVouchers which can be sent to the employee via email or text message, or businesses can hand out a traditional gift card pre-loaded with credit for use in Pizza Express restaurants.

Companies who sign up to the Business Incentive Scheme can choose to purchase vouchers for a specific denomination, or they can choose to add any value onto each gift card. Alternatively, there’s also the option for companies to pay for a three-course meal for an individual or a team, so there’s a suitable Pizza Express reward for every eventuality.

With 400 Pizza Express restaurants across the UK and a range of corporate orientated bonus vouchers available for ongoing incentives and one-off rewards, Pizza Express have high hopes for their new campaign and believe they will break the £1 million barrier for sales through their Business Incentive Scheme by the end of 2012.

Would you consider using the business incentive as a sales bonus? Would you like to receive Pizza Express vouchers as a reward from your boss? Let us know your thoughts using the comments box below.

The pizza school will offer a range of services to offer pizza makers and pizza entrepreneurs the chance to realise their dreams of running their own pizza restaurant. Situated at the original Goodfella’s building, the school will have classes focusing on the art of creating wood fired pizza and gourmet bread using custom brick ovens and also revolving brick ovens.

As well as educating students on the best practice for creating pizza bases, the school will also run special classes on the art of sauce making, and creating innovative pizza topping combinations. There will also be practical business advice on offer for would-be restaurateurs on how to go about setting up and running a pizza restaurant full time.

Goodfella’s have also launched a separate website which focuses on the promotion and sale of custom brick ovens and revolving brick ovens which the company uses in the creation of their award winning pizzas.

The Goodfella’s pizza school plans to attract budding pizza artisans from across the world as it hopes to offer the most comprehensive education in the art of pizza making in the whole of the United States.

Shen Hongui came up with the plan after Pizza Hut imposed a limit on the number of visits diners could make to their salad bar in their restaurants in China. Following Shen’s instructions, diners are able to construct a 1 metre high tower of free salad, ensuring they make the most out of their single visit to the salad buffet.

The engineer recommends building a sturdy foundation for your salad tower with the use of potatoes or chickpeas, then using carrot batons as scaffolding to construct the tower shape and an outer wall of cucumber. The tower will then be hollow to allow the diner to fill it up with their own choices.

A British newspaper has reported that Pizza Hut restaurants in China started pulling their salad bars after the Shen tower of salad started to gain popularity amongst diners who were attempting to pile their bowls with a metre of salad at a time.

There were concerns that the 1 metre salad towers would lead to food wastage as most diners would fail to finish their mountains of free salad, leaving much of the salad to be left uneaten.

Shares for Domino’s are 6% higher compared to the same time last year, after the pizza provider announced their full year profits for the company would be in line with market expectations, which currently stands at £42.2 million.

Strong sales in the run up to Christmas helped Domino’s achieve impressive full year figures with the home pizza delivery provider reporting total orders of £145 million in the 13 weeks leading up to Christmas, £53.1 million of which were online sales. The figures are 9.5% higher compared to the same period 12 months previously.

Saturday night TV shows, such as the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing, helped keep people at home on the weekends and ordering pizzas, which helped boost sales figures for Domino’s further. The economic downturn is still having an effect on the dining habits of Brits as many choose the cheaper option of a takeaway on the sofa as opposed to a night out in a restaurant.

Domino’s new Chief Executive says the business will be looking forward to 2012 with optimism, with plans to nurture growth further with the development of new products and the introduction of Domino’s branches in new locations.

While the Pizza Hut will finish serving pizza from its restaurant in Howardsgate on January 14^th, a spokesperson for the pizza provider revealed that fans of Pizza Hut in the Welwyn Garden City area should not despair as the business was in the process of seeking out a suitable unit in the town from which to set up a pizza delivery service.

The lease on the 2,500 square foot unit was due for renewal in 2014 and Pizza Hut announced last summer that it would not be renewing when the time came. However new tenants have been found for the premises, and so Pizza Hut have taken the opportunity to opt out of their tenancy agreement early.

The Chinese buffet chain, Real China Express has been revealed as the new occupants of the site and hope to have their restaurant up and running by the end of February.

Pizza Hut say they continually evaluate the location of their restaurants in order to ensure they are best meeting the needs of their customers in a particular area. In the situation of Welwyn Garden City, Pizza Hut took the decision that they could best serve customers in this area through a home pizza delivery service as opposed to a restaurant and dine in pizza facility.

Figures released by the leading home pizza delivery company showed that in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the last 13 weeks leading up to Christmas, Domino’s stores in the UK that have been open for more than 12 months showed a 3.6% increase in like-for-like sales compared to the previous year.

As well as reporting a healthy boost in sales to end the year, Domino’s Pizza also succeeded in expanding its empire further in the UK with the launch of 62 new stores throughout the country and plan to open a similar number in the coming year. This brings the UK’s number of Domino’s Pizza stores to 726 stores in Britain.

Overall comparable sales for the year were up by 3% with Domino’s benefitting further from the economic downturn and the eating habits of the nation as more and more people opt to order a takeaway than dine out at a restaurant. Value for money deals at Domino’s such as the Two for Tuesday offer and Buy One Get One Free deals have also helped the pizza grow revenue.

Lance Batchelor has taken over from Chris Moore as Chief Executive Officer for Domino’s Pizza.<http://www.dominos.co.uk/>  This change in management is effective from today [Monday, December 26].

Lance brings with him a breadth of experience from fast moving consumer brands such as Amazon.com, Vodafone and Tesco.  He joined the Domino’s PLC Board of Directors in July 2010 then became Deputy Chief Executive in June 2011, so he has been part of the Domino’s story for 18 months.  Lance has spent the last six months working alongside Chris Moore to become familiar with everything Domino’s, including the detailed operations of the business. He attended Domino’s own Franchise Development Course, the challenging three-week training course for new franchisees, which covers all aspects of running a Domino’s Pizza store.  Lance fully immersed himself into the fine art of pizza-making as well as getting to grips with running the Company from the floor up.  He has spent much of his time getting to know the franchisees and the head office team members and has been familiarising himself with the brand and its history.

Lance Batchelor said: “It is a great privilege to take over as CEO for Domino’s Pizza PLC.  Domino’s has a very simple winning formula: we provide our customers with fresh, tasty, hot pizza in as quick a time as possible.  I am looking forward to driving growth, contributing new ideas and developing new concepts for the business.  Domino’s has earned an excellent reputation as the UK’s leading pizza delivery company and I intend to keep us there.  In tough times the best companies thrive, and Domino’s is well positioned for growth.”

Also a change for Domino’s is that the Company’s head office team moved into a new, state of the art office in December.  Domino’s eye-catching new headquarters is located at West Ashland in Milton Keynes.  It sits alongside the company’s recently constructed commissary facility, which opened in July 2010.

The company outgrew its previous office facilities which were based in Kingston, Milton Keynes.  The new building comprises 2170m2 office space, set over three main floors with a lower ground floor main entrance, striking reception area and a penthouse board room.  The building also contains a test kitchen where Domino’s development ideas come to life and exciting new products are created for addition to the menu.

The Buckingham Group was commissioned to design and build this new head office, which is phase two of Domino’s move to West Ashland.  The new offices and commissary are designed to support Domino’s expansion plans and its goal of 1200 stores in the UK & Ireland by 2021.

Like the commissary building, this new office has been built to BREEAM standards (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) and has been given a rating of excellent.  The BREEAM environmental assessment aims to minimise environmental impact by ensuring sustainable best practices are in place, helping to lower costs through efficiency.

To achieve the BREEAM rating of excellent it is not just technical aspects of the building that are considered, the rating also includes key aspects designed to improve health, wellbeing and general comfort to its users.

The building utilises modern mechanical heating and cooling systems, fully integrated with natural green ventilation systems.  These systems, that will enhance the building’s energy efficiency and reduce its carbon footprint, are controlled through an intelligent, direct, digitally-controlled building management system. It also contains and internal bicycle storage facility to encourage employees to bring their bike to work.

Lance Batchelor, Chief Executive Officer for Domino’s Pizza commented: “This impressive new building will ensure that we are prepared for future growth and allows us to better service all our franchisees and stores.  It’s an inspiring working environment for our employees.”

Tim Brown, Director of Buckingham Group, said: “We are delighted to have been given the opportunity by Domino’s Pizza to design and construct its new headquarters building.  We have worked closely with the Domino’s team to convert the stylish contemporary design concept into an impressive landmark building, of which we are justifiably proud.”