In , a man named Joseph Bucci in Philadelphia filed the first official patent for frozen pizza, titled "Method for Making Frozen Pizza.
In that patent application , Bucci mentions issues with quick-freezing pizza dough, including the need to eliminate excess moisture that "renders it soggy and unpalatable" by applying an "edible sealing agent" to prevent tomato sauce from permeating the dough when it bakes.
Unfortunately, it's anyone's guess what Bucci ultimately did with his patent, because by the time it was granted in , various businesses had already been putting frozen pizzas on U. And, in , a Chicago businessman named Emil De Salvi launched his Pizza-Fro brand of frozen pies that, by , had reportedly sold over five million frozen pizzas over the previous two-year period, according to a Chicago Tribune report at the time.
America's frozen pizza business was mostly made up of regional players until the s, when a few businesses started to achieve national fame. Married couple Rose and Jim Totino began mass-producing frozen pizzas from a plant in St. Louis Park, Minnesota in A decade earlier, when the couple took out a loan to open an Italian restaurant in Minnesota, Rose had to bake a pizza for her bank's loan officer because he'd never heard of pizza.
Pillsbury wasn't alone, as the ensuing decades saw multiple large corporations get into the frozen pizza business by buying up notable family brands. Examples include Mama Celeste's frozen pizza, which was founded by Italian immigrant Celeste Lizio in Chicago in the earlys before being sold to Quaker Oats in And, in , the Simek brothers of Medford, Wisconsin pivoted from selling pizzas in their bar, The Tombstone Tap, to a business selling frozen pizzas to other nearby taverns.
Two years later, Kraft Foods bought Tombstone for an undisclosed amount. Meanwhile, frozen food delivery company Schwan's finally entered the frozen pizza business in with the purchase of Salina, Kansas-based pizza manufacturer Tony's. In , the U. The FDA only required that manufacturers who use imitation cheese clearly state that in their labels. However, the USDA's proposal touched a nerve with consumers, who responded with thousands of comments, both for and against the proposal.
Fechter agrees. Drafthaus pizzas need to bake at F for at least 20 minutes. Baking it at F will cause the outside to burn before the middle heats all the way through. Pepperoni, plain cheese and the supreme or deluxe styles made the list from Fallucca, Fechter and Zelch. Though Fallucca did point out that in his experience, Wisconsinites favor sausage more than folks in other parts of the country. More: Black Otter Supper Club sells Call ahead to reserve a cut. Having frozen pizza brands rise to regional and national prominence helped solidify Wisconsin as an epicenter of frozen pizza.
Though there are other reasons Wisconsin is the best place to make pizza, says Zelch. Specifically the mozzarella cheese used on DiGiorno, Jack's and Tombstone pizzas all comes from Wisconsin.
Cheese and meat producers supply Palermo's with superior quality ingredients, says Fallucca, and he also credits the state's "ton of food manufacturing" know-how, a cluster of food producers from northern Illinois through Green Bay, and "a great work force. Being in the dairy state is an advantage, says Fechter.
The pizzeria is tucked back off the street. Owners Randy and Pati Reinke hadn't envisioned having a restaurant 15 years ago when they were making pizzas as church fundraisers.
To be clear, this is not Home Run Inn frozen pizza that calls Chicago home. Randy's professional background is engineering for Wausau Papers and Pacon Corporation. He also owned a machinery business where he designed and built converting equipment. Even with a strong engineering background, he says building a pizza-making facility in their home was "a nightmare to get approved with the department of agriculture. Perfecting the pizza sauce and toppings was a matter of handing out samples to neighbors.
With the recipe dialed in the next move was into a 3, square-foot facility. Then people were asking for sit down restaurant. So they made the move to the Wisconsin Avenue location. Now you can find Home Run pizzas at Meijer and Woodmans.
Randy says Woodmans goes through about 30 cases per week. Home Run pizzas are also in about bars. Fundraisers are still a big part of the business. Behind the restaurant kitchen is a single line where fundraising pizzas are made. Randy says they can do pizzas in about three-and-half hours.
Though the engineer in Randy continually looks for bottlenecks where he can improve efficiency and any way to improve the pizzas. If you throw them in a box right away, they flatten down before they freeze. Randy says demand is strong enough that he should probably expand the facility and open the restaurant for lunch.
He has a distributor interested in taking his pizzas across the state. Starting small. Making the rounds at bars. Then expanding across the state. It's a proven pattern to frozen pizza success in Wisconsin. Almost all of the company's pizza is produced at its Wisconsin plants in Little Chute and Medford, and more than 75 percent of the cheese used on the pizza is from Wisconsin.
Within two years, the Little Chute facility doubled capacity and grew as Wisconsin-made Jack's and Tombstone brands became household names nationwide. We encourage you to read our updated Privacy Policy Hide. Toggle navigation Toggle search. Subscribe Today Reliable Plant Newsletters.
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