History of frozen pizza

The technological innovation of the home freezer, which proliferated in the 1950s, made possible the rise of the frozen pizza market. By 1972, one in every three households had a home freezer.

In Newark, the Celentano brothers opened an Italian specialty shop in 1947. Their product line included every imaginable meat and cheese, freshly made, for Italian cooking. In 1957, the brothers applied their expertise to pizza, making a frozen version available for home cooking.

Pizza soon became the most popular of all frozen foods. Soon after, Rose and Jim Totino, owners of one of the frist pizzerias in Minneapolis, who had opened a pizza parlor in 1952, came out with their own brand of frozen pizza.

Totino’s Finer Foods became a nationwide business. Rose hire brokers, people who will sell a product in different towns, to sell her pizzas across the country.

Pillsbury acquired Totino’s in 1975 for $20 million, giving them a nationwide market in frozen food distribution. By 1969, Totino’s frozen pizza had cornered the market with 75% of all frozen pizza sales, but it faces the competition of an emerging rival, Tombstone, bought by Kraft in 1986.
History of frozen pizza