Chances are good there’s a frozen pizza in your refrigerator. Or two. Americans feast on more than 350 million of them annually, ringing up $5.5 billion in sales. In fact, the average family consumes 30 a year, more than once every two weeks.
But would you believe this big seller came within a whisker of flopping in its early days? And its survival is chiefly due to a little lady in Minnesota who turned around an entire industry. This is the story of the woman who saved frozen pizza.
It’s hard to believe now, but there once was a time when pizza was an exotic entrée for most of America. Italian immigrants brought it with them at the turn of the 20th Century. The first pizza parlor opened in New York City in 1905. Others followed, though they were mostly limited to places with large Italian communities in the northeast and Chicago. 
Then GIs returning home from World War II changed everything. Hundreds of thousands of them had spent time in Italy, and they were eager to continue eating the dish they had developed a taste for. They also made up for lost time by having babies. Lots and lots of babies. So many, in fact, the population increase was called the Baby Boom.
Thus the stage was set for a pizza explosion in the 1950s. Pizzerias began popping up from the Rio Grande to Niagara Falls. Folks couldn’t get enough of the spicy treat. Kids especially loved its cheesy taste, making it a perfect fit for the times.
It coincided with a huge jump in the popularity of frozen foods, such as TV dinners and frozen vegetables. Baby Boom moms had their hands full looking after all those kids. Anything that saved time in the kitchen was welcomed with open arms.    
It was only a matter of time until frozen pizzas began appearing in grocery store freezers in the late 1950s. The public eagerly snapped them up. 
And they hated them!
The pie they took out of their oven tasted nothing like the ones they enjoyed at their local pizzeria. The frozen version was flat and dry. Most people said it tasted like cardboard. The fledgling market was in serious danger of going under.
Until Rose stepped in.  
Born Rose Cruciani to Italian immigrants in 1915, she grew up enjoying the pizza her mother made from scratch. She baked sweet versions as treat for a Cub Scout pack and brought meat versions to PTA meetings. People were so crazy about Rose’s pizza pies, she and husband Jim, a baker, eventually opened their own Italian Kitchen restaurant in Minneapolis. It started as a take-out joint in 1951. But Rose’s pizzas were so popular, it soon expanded to full sit down dining. They went from making and serving 120 pizzas a day to 200, then 500. By 1960, they couldn’t keep up with demand.
So in 1962, they opened a second business selling Rose’s Italian specialties. It was such a huge failure, Rose and Jim almost went bankrupt a year later. But they stuck it out. Rose and her husband began experimenting with ways to prevent ice crystals from forming, thus making the crust taste as fresh as the restaurant version. Their process was so successful, Rose and her husband patented it. They not only saved their business, they completely revolutionized the entire frozen pizza market. Rose’s side business exploded, wildly surpassing restaurant sales.
You’ve likely tasted Rose’s product at one time or another. Because her married name was Rose Totino, and Totino’s Frozen Pizza was her product. Jim and Rose sold the company to Pillsbury in 1975 for a reported $22 million, about $105 million today. Rose stayed on as a vice president at Pillsbury, where she also kept a close eye on her creation. She passed away in 1994 at age 79, wealthy, respected, and beloved in the Twin Cities. Not bad for a woman who had dropped out of high school at age 16 to clean houses so she could help support her family during the Depression.
Nearly one million Americans will eat a slice of frozen pizza at some point today. And they’ll never know they have a small, apple-cheeked woman to thank for it.      
Have comments, questions or suggestions you’d like to share with Mark? Message him at jmp.press@gmail.com.