Slicing and Dicing Demographic Data, Pizza Makers Heat Up Frozen Sales
By JOHN M. SAULNIER
QFFI Chief Editor & Publisher

Chef Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo lends his recipe and name to Barbecue Chicken Stone-Fired Pizza found in the freezer sections of natural foods stores and other retail outlets in North America. All natural chicken is used as a topping, along with chipotle barbecue sauce, a blend of four cheeses, grilled red onions and cilantro.

There’s a lot more in the freezer aisle than traditional products aimed at children, single-person households, calorie-conscious dieters and informal party makers. From the USA and United Kingdom to continental Europe, variety spices up consumer choice.

Something for everyone is available in today’s expanding world of frozen pizza. Upscale is on sale, gourmet is good, thin is in, microwaveable is hot, trans-fat crusts are not, and organic ingredients appeal to folks looking for healthy-eating options. Those are among the major trends shaping he USA’s $2.67 billion retail frozen pizza business.

Sales were relatively flat at -0.3% during the 52-week period ending Sept. 9, 2006, according to ACNielsen. During the same time frame, volume slipped by -0.2% to approximately 1.01 billion units. While this might suggest relatively soft market conditions, the numbers do not include proprietary statistics from Wal-Mart, where masses of Americans pack frozen pizza into their shopping carts on a weekly basis.

With restaurants and pizzerias accounting for the biggest piece of the overall pizza market by far – annual sales were were up 3.4% in 2005 to a whopping $27.7 billion, according to Chicago-based Technomic Information Services – it comes as no surprise that frozen producers are increasingly emphasizing restaurant quality pizza of their own to win the hearts and stomachs of gourmands dining at home. Add a dash of “all natural” ingredients to the recipe, and the market for potential customers enlarges proportionately.

Award winning Chef Rick Bayless of Chicago’s Frontera Grill and Topolobampo is marketing a range of All Natural Frontera Stone-Fired Pizza offerings packed in 440-gram boxes that retail for $5.99 in the frozen food section. Four offerings are available: Barbecue Chicken, Four Cheese, Roasted Vegetable, plus Sausage and Roasted Pepper.

Packaging for the Barbecue Chicken variety boasts “no artificial ingredients” and points out that the chicken was “raised without antibiotics.” If that’s not enough for food politics-correct consumers, then they might be further impressed with the “Minimally Processed” guarantee.

Chef Frontera, who is a cookbook author and host of a television show called Mexico – One Plate at a Time, is well known for his south-of-the-border cuisine style.

The cheese is thick and the price is even thicker – at $7.99 charged by a Stop & Shop supermarket outlet in Somerset, New Jersey – for this newly launched Freschetta Ultra Thin 2-Pack Pizza Singles. Manufactured and marketed by Schwan’s Consumer Brands North America, Inc., the 280-gram product’s topping is a rich blend of mozzarella, smoked provolone, parmesan, asiago and romano cheese.

Primo is Italian for first, and Primo Thin from Palermo’s is said to be the first pizza in the USA featuring an “ultra-thin, crispy crust and a special selection of unique toppings.” The 445-gram product retails for $4.99.

“I lived above a pizza joint once, in Oaxaca, Mexico,” he recalled. “Every evening, the aroma of yeasty golden crusts mingled with tomato...and chilies and cilantro. It was pizza for sure, but pizza with a delicious Mexican spirit.

“Back in the States,” he continued, “my homemade pizza sauce started tasting a little like salsa. Toppings explored New World territories. The crust had the satisfying crispness of a traditional stone-fired oven. And a new pizza was born – Frontera Pizza.”

Meanwhile, celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, who gave rise to the gourmet frozen pizza segment in the USA some time ago by offering frozen versions of favorites from his Spago restaurant menu in Hollywood, recently unveiled an All-Natural range of his own distributed in collaboration with Schwan’s Consumer Brands North America [see story on next page].

Puck has plucked a pizza powerhouse in teaming up with Schwan’s, as the Marshall, Minnesota-based company’s successful stable of frozen pizza brands include such household names as Tony’s, Red Baron and Freschetta.

When it comes to crusts, thin is the “in thing” with Schwan’s, as Red Baron took off last year with a Thin Crust Ultimate Pepperoni featuring a “new, crispy crust.” More recently, its Freschetta franchise rolled out Ultra Thin 2-Pack Pizza Singles.

Noting that approximately 40% of frozen pizza dollars are rung up from sales of single-serve products, A.J. Aumock, Freschetta’s marketing director, commented: “Consumers usually purchase more than one pizza at a time, so by offering Freschetta Pizza 2-Pack Singles, we are giving them a great tasting, convenient option that meets their needs.”

Also quite heavily into the thin thing is Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Palermo’s Villa Inc., which is selling Primo Thin Ultra-Thin Crust Pizza in 445-gram packages. Its Special Edition Pepperoni offering is topped with a blend of mozzarella, parmesan and romano cheese, sliced pork and beef pepperoni, tomato paste and hot sauce.

Across the Pond

On the other side of the Atlantic, Schwan’s arm in the United Kingdom has extended the reach of its Chicago Town line with the introduction of a TakeAway Original Pizza sub-brand. Ten varieties are offered, featuring toppings ranging from 5 Cheese and Pepperoni to Supreme. Distributed in Top Heavy, Original and Pan Pizza varieties, the assortment’s introductory “deal” price of £3 includes a bonus portion of garlic bread.

“TakeAway Pizza is the benchmark against which all other pizzas are judged, and we wanted to match that offering but at supermarket prices,” said Nicola Kenyon, brand manager (Phone: +44 1772-622458). “We are challenging the home-delivery market with this range, and aim to bring a portion of the £700 million delivery/take away market into the frozen category.”

Having recognized a gap in the market for consumers wanting delivery-style pizza, Schwan’s is also offering an Individual Pan Pizza, which it believes has all the benefits of the large TakeAway product, but in a single-serving size. “It acts very much as an entry point for first time customers,” pointed out Ms. Kenyon.

French Connection

Want to spice up this 360-gram organic La Pizza du Moulin? Here’s what the manufacturer, Sole Mio of Malissard, France, recommends: “Take a bottle and pour in some oil, add two to three hot red peppers, a branch of thyme and a few herbs from Provence. Marinate for a few days. Your hot sauce is ready. The longer you leave it, the better it gets.”

From la belle France, Malissard-based Sole Mio (Phone: +33 4-7585-4774) offers La Pizza du Moulin topped with tomato puree, grated emmental cheese, ham, sunflower oil, herbs and spices. Baked in a wood-fired oven, the 360-gram product’s packaging sports a green and white Agriculture Biologique logo to certify its organic or “bio” status.

Producing some eight million pizzas in 2005, the company’s revenues amounted to EUR 12 million that year. Approximately 86% of output was supplied to retailers of private labels in Europe, among them Auchan, Carrefour and Delhaize. Sales outside of France – primarily rung up in Spain, Norway, Germany, Holland and Canada – accounted for 18% of volume.

With enough capacity to turn out 20 million pizzas per annum from four lines feeding into three freezer tunnels, Sole Mio sells both traditional and artisnal products. Other organic offerings feature toppings of goat cheese, ham and cheese, and cooked vegetables. The company’s wider, non-organic assortment’s toppings range from fruits de mer (mussels, squid and shrimp) and chorizo, red peppers and cheese, to tuna, shrimp and cheese, and ham, mushrooms and cheese.

Microwave Powers Up

Take the Ellio’s Rock Star Challenge and enjoy McCain Ellio’s Microwave Cheese Pizza in the bargain with this new product. The 158-gram pack retails for $1.99..

Wild Oats Natural Roasted Vegetable Pizza features an organic wheat flour crust topped with mozzarella cheese, artichokes, red and yellow peppers and mushrooms. The 16- ounce (453-gram) product, distributed by Boulder, Colorado, USA-headquartered Wild Oats Markets, Inc., costs $4.99..

On the microwaveable pizza front in the USA, McCain Ellio’s of Lodi, New Jersey, has introduced a new Cheese Pizza that sells for $1.99 per 158-gram pack and contains zero trans fat. It comes with a stand-up, microwave crisping tray that facilitates crisping in just three minutes of zapping.

Aimed at teenage and tween markets, the product’s packaging features Ellio’s Rock Star Challenge, which invites music making consumers to win prizes including a 42-inch flat screen TV.

Celeste Pizza for One, meanwhile, has debuted a Cheeseburger Pizza that is ready to serve after four just minutes of microwaving. It comes with a microwave disk that facilitates preparation, and was retailing at a bargain price of $1.25 recently.

Solon, Ohio-based Nestlé USA is offering Brick Oven Style BBQ-recipe Chicken Pizza under its popular Lean Cuisine label. Toppings also include red onions and cilantro. The 170-gram product is distributed in microwaveable packaging, and is not intended for preparation in either a conventional or toaster oven.

Store Brands Heat Up

In the private label segment, stores in the upscale Wegmans chain offer a French Bread Pizza that looks pretty much like the one that has been produced by market leader Stouffer’s for generations – but at the bargain price of $5 for two 329-gram boxes. The Deluxe version – featuring a topping of pepperoni, sausage, onions, red and green peppers – is ready to serve in four to six minutes if “micro-baked,” or 22 minutes if heated in a conventional oven.

Wild Oats Markets, Inc., the Boulder, Colorado-headquarted natural foods retail chain, is serving up Roasted Vegetable Pizza with a wheat flour crust. The 16-ounce product, which was selling for $4.99 at an outlet in Princeton, New Jersey, recently, is topped with mozzarella cheese, red and yellow peppers, and mushrooms.

Riding in high profile on the own label scene in the Northeastern United States is Italian WoodFired Pizza. It flies the Stop & Shop supermarket banner, and is distributed by parent Ahold USA’s Foodhold USA unit of Landover, Maryland. Made in Italy, the product is generously topped with sliced mozzarella,tomato sauce, basil, pepper and oregano.

Wolfgang Puck and Schwan’s Teaming Up To Market All-Natural Frozen Pizza Line Celebrity chef and restaurateur Wolfgang Puck, through his Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc. (WPW) outfit has launched a Wolfgang Puck All Natural frozen pizza line in partnership with Schwan’s Consumer Brands North America, as reported in the October issue of QFFI. Meanwhile, Schwan’s has announced that its Freschetta brand is entering the refrigerated category for the first time with the launch of Freschetta Build & Bake, a premium quality pizza component product line consisting of individually packaged cheese, meat, crust and sauce. Wolfgang Puck All-Natural pizzas are part of an assortment of hand-crafted gourmet pizzas menued at Puck’s Spago fine dining restaurants, and Gourmet Express fast-casual restaurants. “Each Wolfgang Puck All-Natural pizza is carefully crafted using my favorite recipes and toppings,” said the chef. “I always insist on using only the freshest all-natural herbs and spices, vegetables, meats and cheeses. Like in my restaurants, the pizzas are made by hand. Now consumers can enjoy restaurant-quality gourmet pizzas at home.” The new line combines Puck’s culinary innovation, popular flavors and ingredients with artisan quality preparation. The product is said to raise the bar in the frozen pizza category by including fresh, hand-cut toppings and a simple, pure flavor sauce with real tomato taste and texture. All the pizzas feature honey-infused crusts that are hand-stretched and brushed with olive oil before being baked. The resulting crispy center and random yeast-risen edges allow for naturally-baked browning to occur. Consumers can choose from six varieties of Wolfgang Puck All-Natural pizza, as follows: Spicy Chicken: Seasoned chicken and roasted red and yellow peppers topped with mozzarella cheese and red pepper flakes. Four-Cheese: Featuring pesto sauce topped with a blend of mozzarella, fontina, parmesan and creamy goat cheeses, along with sliced red tomatoes and basil. Barbecue Chicken: Seasoned chicken, red onions and tomatoes topped with mozzarella cheese and tangy barbecue sauce. Margherita: Tomato slices, basil, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses placed atop Puck’s signature tomato-basil-garlic sauce, then dabbed with pesto sauce. Pepperoni: Featuring tomato-basil-garlic sauce topped with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, pepperoni slices and more mozzarella. Cheese: Highlighting signature tomato-basil-garlic sauce covered with mozzarella, fontina and parmesan cheeses, then topped with herbs. The pizzas are now available as single packs in retail stores and as two-packs in club stores. As for Schwan’s other new venture, it is aimed at filling a gap in national branding.