Once upon a time, our family ordered pizza from one of the (oh-so-many) pizza places in town and three hours later, our pie still had not arrived. [Sidenote: I hate the term “pie” as it relates to pizza. Or pretty much everything. Pie is the brussels sprouts of the dessert world. Blech.] Three hours. Apparently the place was busy, but y’know… three hours? Really?
Fortunately, there are several other pizza places in town – but sometimes the decision to have pizza for dinner is born of impulse, of laziness – of not wanting to spend $15 or more and wait for dinner. Before Blissdom last year, I received coupons for Freschetta. Before that, I’d never had it. I’m uh, not really a fan of “freezer pizza” (as my kids call it). It’s never filling, the toppings look like dehydrated imitations of real food and the crust – my favorite part of the pizza – always tended to leave me wanting for more. By more, I mean something that resembled FOOD not cardboard.
In Nashville, I consumed muchas Freschetta. I had the opportunity to participate in a focus group, learn more about the brand, the product and try a lot of it too. And you know what? It’s good.
I’m not just talkin’ it’s good… “for freezer pizza”. It’s actually good.
Especially the crust.
Bonus points for the good crust.
Last month, Freschetta sent me another coupon for a free pizza (they also sent me super cute pink headphones – which was awesome because I had just broken YET ANOTHER PAIR of iPhone earbuds – how are those things not better quality? Don’t ask how many pairs I’ve killed – IT’S A LOT).
A four-cheese medley pizza in the oven after a long day of work? Easy. And not just easy, but yummy. And not just yummy but without whining from the kids that it was “yucky” or “didn’t taste good” or “EW! What did you make? WHAT IS THAT IN THERE?” or any of the normal gripes that normally accompany my putting a meal on the table. Gosh, kids, no wonder I hate cooking.
But, Freschetta is a win – the kids love it, I love it – it’s simple and it tastes good. Now that I’m back in the office, having a reliable back up plan for the days when cooking seems like an overwhelming task, well… that’s definitely a good thing.
The only problem? The kids love Freschetta so much they almost never save their crusts for me to eat.
Darnit.
Interesting factoid:
In the early 90’s I was on the development team that created the rising crust pizza at a plant in Tennessee. My contribution was the use of GDL (glucono delta lactone) in the crust. GDL is an acidulant with a slow hydrolysis. This prevents browning (oxygen exposure to yeast) on the pre-risen crust, while in the freezer. All this development work was done by Schwan’s Foods. Schwan’s owns Freshetta and Tony’s pizza. They beat Kraft (DiGiorno) to the development concept of the rising crust. However, Kraft beat Schwan’s to the advertising punch. Today DiGiorno outsells Freshetta 2 to 1. YET Freshetta tastes MUCH better.
So there you go …… Way more info than you would ever want.