Inside the AVPN Standard: What Makes Pizza 'Verace Napoletana'

When a pizzeria displays the Vera Pizza Napoletana sign, it is using a trademark. The Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (AVPN) owns the mark and lets member pizzerias use it as long as they make pizza to its rulebook, the Disciplinare, and keep passing its checks. That makes the AVPN mark something different from the European Union’s Pizza Napoletana registration, which is often described as if it were the same thing.

This page covers what the AVPN is, what its current rules say, how a pizzeria gets and loses the mark, how the EU registration differs, and what any of it means for pizza made at home.

What the AVPN is

The AVPN describes itself as a non-profit organization founded in Naples in June 1984 to promote and protect “true Neapolitan pizza.” Its history page dates the start to July 3, 1984, when 17 master pizza makers set up the association by registering its rules, and the current Disciplinare refers to the first version dated June 14, 1984. Modernist Pizza names Antonio Pace as one of the founders and its president.

The association also runs a training school in Naples, keeps a register of approved suppliers and promotes Neapolitan pizza abroad. Its own milestones include a first world convention of pizza makers in 1989, for the centenary of the Margherita, a UNI quality mark for Neapolitan pizza (UNI 10791:1998, a standard UNI has since withdrawn), and support for the 2017 UNESCO listing of the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo as intangible cultural heritage.

Modernist Pizza’s authors are frank about the other side of it: the AVPN “is as much about pizza making as it is about marketing,” and its rules “purport to codify the way pizza was made in Naples for hundreds of years,” though the authors found that some of its “authentic” features date from the 1950s to the 1990s.

How many pizzerias? The AVPN’s online member directory listed 888 pizzerias in 65 countries when checked on October 14, 2026 (counted from the directory). Italy had the most, 250, followed by the United States with 98 and Japan with 93. Modernist Pizza (2021) gave a figure of 835 certified pizzerias worldwide and about 100 in the United States, and dates the first US certification to Antica Pizzeria in Los Angeles in 1994.

What the rules say

The current English Disciplinare, which the AVPN links from its recipe page, sets out the method in detail. The main points:

• Four ingredients. Flour, water, salt and yeast, with “never” any fat or sugar in the dough.
• Flour. Type “00” or “0”, with up to 5 to 20% type “1” allowed. For 00 flour the rules give a W (strength) of 250 to 320 and protein of 11.5 to 13.5%. (“00” is an ash grade, not a measure of fineness or strength; see the flour guide.)
• Proportions. For each liter of water: 1.6 to 1.8 kg of flour, depending on how much water it absorbs, 40 to 60 g of salt, and 0.1 to 3 g of fresh brewer’s yeast (or a third as much dry yeast), depending on temperature, humidity and timing. That works out to about 56 to 63% hydration (calculated).
• Mixing. By hand, or in a fork, spiral or plunging-arm mixer: about 10 minutes while the flour goes in, then up to 20 minutes more.
• Fermentation. A first rest in bulk under a damp cloth, then the dough is divided by hand into balls and rises again in boxes. The rules allow 12 to 24 hours in all, at room temperature or in a proofing cabinet (ideally 18 to 20°C and 60 to 70% humidity).
• Balls and size. 200 to 280 g, for a pizza 22 to 35 cm across (about 8½ to 14 inches).
• Shaping. By hand only, pressing from the center outward. Rolling pins and mechanical presses aren’t permitted. The shaping section puts the baked center at about 0.25 to 0.30 cm thick, with a 10% tolerance (Article 1 gives 0.25 cm), and the raised rim, the cornicione, at 1 to 2 cm high.
• Baking. Directly on the oven floor, never in a tray, for 60 to 90 seconds. The rules give the floor at about 380 to 430°C (716 to 806°F) and the dome at about 485°C (905°F). Wood is traditional, and gas or electric ovens are allowed if the oven model is certified by the AVPN; a pizzeria using one gets a modified certificate and mark that shows the difference.
• The oven. The Disciplinare gives the traditional dimensions: a floor 105 to 140 cm across, preferably laid in four pieces on a bed of sand and salt. It doesn’t name a floor material.
• Serving. The pizza is eaten straight from the oven, preferably within 10 minutes in the dining room or 20 minutes as takeaway, and can’t be frozen or vacuum-packed for later sale.

More than two pizzas. The rules give recipes for the Marinara and the Margherita, and also for the four seasons, the capricciosa, the baked ripieno or calzone, and fried pizza. The Margherita takes 60 to 80 g of peeled tomato, 6 to 7 g of extra-virgin olive oil, 80 to 100 g of buffalo mozzarella or fior di latte from the association’s supplier register, a few basil leaves, and optionally 5 to 7 g of grated hard cheese.

The AVPN’s two documents don’t agree on every point. Its short public recipe page says the pizza must be baked “exclusively in a wood-fired oven” at 430 to 480°C, allows a total rise of 8 to 24 hours and sourdough at 5 to 20% of the flour. The full Disciplinare allows certified gas and electric ovens, sets 12 to 24 hours, and limits sourdough to under 10%. Both were checked on October 14, 2026; this page follows the full Disciplinare.

How a pizzeria earns and keeps the mark

Articles 6 and 7 of the Disciplinare describe the process. A pizzeria applies on the association’s forms. After administrative and technical checks, the board of directors decides whether to grant the mark. The checks cover the mixing, fermentation and preparation stages, the raw materials and equipment, how ingredients are stored, and whether the finished pizza meets the rules. The person running the pizzeria must also show they know the product, and the association can ask the staff to take training courses.

After that, AVPN delegates carry out periodic and random checks. If they find a breach, the pizzeria is asked to fix it, the fix is verified after 30 days, and a pizzeria that keeps failing can be excluded by the board, with the trademark withdrawn.

How the EU’s TSG is different

In 2010 the European Commission entered “Pizza Napoletana” in its register of Traditional Specialities Guaranteed (TSG, or STG in Italian), under Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010. The application came from two groups, the AVPN and the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani, and carries the date February 9, 2005. Germany and Poland objected; Germany’s concern that only Italian flour qualified was settled by lifting the flour restriction, and the Commission ruled on Poland’s objection.

The TSG is a product specification, not a membership. It describes how a pizza sold as Pizza Napoletana TSG is made. Two details are easy to miss:

• The name was reserved only in 2022. The 2010 specification records the registration as “without reservation of the name.” Under the TSG rules in force then, the name could still be used on pizza that didn’t follow the specification, just without the words “traditional speciality guaranteed,” the abbreviation TSG or the EU symbol. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2313 then entered Pizza Napoletana in the register again, this time with reservation of the name, from December 18, 2022. That is an EU rule about the TSG name; it’s separate from the AVPN’s private trademark and doesn’t make AVPN membership a requirement.
• The numbers differ from the AVPN’s. The TSG is stricter on wood, looser on flour and shorter on fermentation.

Note the last temperature row. The TSG’s table puts about 485°C on the cooking floor and about 430°C at the dome, while the AVPN puts about 485°C at the dome and 380 to 430°C on the floor. The TSG’s toppings are also narrower: its Margherita uses Mozzarella di Bufala Campana or Mozzarella STG, and its Marinara 70 to 100 g of tomato with 4 to 5 g of oil.

What the rules don’t settle

Practice in Naples. Modernist Pizza puts the number of AVPN-certified pizzerias in Naples at 100, and its team reported that “not a single pizzeria we visited followed the AVPN rules to the letter.” They didn’t conclude that those pizzerias weren’t making Neapolitan pizza.

Digestibility. The Disciplinare says a well-fermented, matured dough “will require less effort from our digestive system.” Modernist Pizza calls that kind of claim unsupported: its authors found no scientific evidence that the amount of yeast or the length of fermentation makes pizza more or less digestible.

Which pizzerias. Membership changes, so check the AVPN directory for a particular pizzeria. On October 14, 2026 it listed, for example, several Pupatella locations in Virginia, Washington, DC and Maryland, and Gino Sorbillo’s pizzerias in Naples and Milan. Not every celebrated Neapolitan-style pizzeria belongs. Modernist Pizza notes that Keste in New York is the main US outpost of the other Naples body, the Associazione Pizzaiuoli Napoletani (APN), which certifies pizza makers rather than pizzerias.

What it means at home

No kitchen oven can meet either standard. A home oven’s dial usually tops out around 500 to 550°F (260 to 288°C), well short of a 716 to 806°F floor, so a home pizza bakes for minutes rather than seconds and loses more water on the way.

That’s why home methods change the dough rather than chase the numbers. The Pizza Planner’s home-oven route uses a 70% dough, following Ken Forkish’s home adaptation, with a 500 to 550°F setting, a 6- to 10-minute bake and a 45- to 60-minute preheat for a steel. For a portable pizza oven running a 750 to 850°F (400 to 450°C) stone, it switches to a 60% dough and a 1- to 2-minute bake, close to the AVPN’s proportions. Its 250 g ball for a 12-inch pizza sits inside the AVPN’s 200 to 280 g range. The reasons are in Neapolitan pizza at home, and the full home pizza is in the home-oven Margherita. For how Neapolitan pizza sits among other styles, see the Pizza Style Atlas.

Sources

• Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana: International Regulations (Disciplinare), English edition linked from its recipe page as Disciplinare-2024-ENG.pdf, articles 1–7 (ingredients, proportions, fermentation, shaping, baking, oven, recipes, membership and checks); recipe page; About, history and certifications pages; member directory (count of listed pizzerias and countries calculated from the directory). Checked October 14, 2026.
• Commission Regulation (EU) No 97/2010 of 4 February 2010 entering a name in the register of traditional specialities guaranteed [Pizza Napoletana (TSG)]: recitals 1–9 and Annex II, the product specification. Read from the copy on legislation.gov.uk, derived from EUR-Lex. Checked October 14, 2026.
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/2313 of 25 November 2022 entering a name in the register of traditional specialities guaranteed [Pizza Napoletana (TSG)], recitals 2–4 and Article 1 (registration with reservation of the name; in force December 18, 2022), on EUR-Lex. Checked October 14, 2026.
• Council Regulation (EC) No 509/2006 on traditional specialities guaranteed, Article 13 (use of registered names with and without reservation).
• UNI, catalog entry for UNI 10791:1998 (in effect from December 31, 1998; withdrawn without replacement on March 7, 2024). Checked October 14, 2026.
• Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, Modernist Pizza (2021), volume 1: page xiii (the AVPN’s “authentic” features), pages 74–75 (founding, marketing, certification count, UNESCO), page 85 (first US member, about 100 US pizzerias, the APN and Keste), page 133 (digestibility claims) and pages 154–155 (AVPN pizzerias in Naples).
• Ken Forkish, The Elements of Pizza (2016), chapter 2: his account of the rules (55 to 59% hydration) and the home-oven adaptation.