A pizza screen is the unsung hero of a busy pizzeria. The open mesh lets hot air circulate underneath the dough as it bakes, which is what produces a properly crisp base — the kind that holds its shape under toppings rather than going soft and floppy in the middle. Bake the same pizza on a solid tray and you'll get a pale, steamed underside no matter how hot the oven is.

The mesh design also speeds up cook times. Direct heat reaches the dough through the perforations rather than having to pass through a layer of metal first, which means a 10-12 minute pizza in a deck oven comes out in 7-9 minutes on a screen. Over a service of 60 pizzas, that adds up to real throughput gains.

Aluminium is the right material for the job — light enough to spin and slide out of the oven quickly during service, durable enough to handle daily use without warping, and rust-resistant for the wet-dough environment of a pizzeria bench. The lightweight build also makes loading and unloading easier on the wrists during a long shift.

For home pizza makers, screens solve the most common problem with home-oven pizza: the dough sticks, tears, or refuses to slide off the peel. With a screen, you build the pizza directly on it, slide the whole thing into the oven, and pull it out the same way. No risk of toppings sliding off in transit and no wrestling with a peel that's gone too sticky.

Suitable for traditional pizza, flatbread, focaccia, and even reheating thinner items where you want the crisp finish. The open mesh isn't suited to wet batter or anything that would fall through, but for any dough-based product, it's the better tool.

Part of the KH Amore range of commercial pizzeria equipment.