DiGiorno did just that as its rising crust pizza  quickly took over the market. Keep watching to  

discover what you need to know about one  of the most popular frozen pizzas around.

DiGiorno originated as a product of its  time. Frozen pizza started appearing in  

grocery stores in the northeastern  United States in the early 1950s,  

thanks to the common household refrigerator.  One of the first pieces of historical evidence  

of the product was a patent granted  in 1954 to a man named Joseph Bucci.  

Within the decade, the New England  trend had spread throughout the country.

Then in the 60s, Rose Totino  stepped into the game.  

And then came the Red Baron line  in the 1970s. But soon enough,  

DiGiorno arrived and quickly eclipsed the rest of  the frozen pizza section of most grocery stores.  

Kraft launched DiGiorno in 1995 and it quickly  became a hit with the promise of that rising  

crust. And it could indeed pass for delivery,  just like the famous ad campaign promised.

"For fresh-baked pizza at home,  it's not delivery, it's DiGiorno."

In 2018, USA Today reported that DiGiorno was  the best-selling frozen pizza on the planet,  

as it accounted for nearly  half the sales in the industry.

Things continued to progress for DiGiorno  into the 21st century. In 2010, the brand was  

acquired by Nestlé. The purchase was actually  a strategic move by the Swiss multinational,  

as it had had only a small presence in North  America's frozen pizza game before that point.  

The company also owned Stouffer's French Bread  Pizza, but this movie promised to take things  

to another level, as the acquisition  of DiGiorno also enabled Nestlé the  

opportunity to leverage some rather significant  pizza-making know-how in the European market.

New corporate ownership wasn't the only change  for DiGiorno at that time, as certain ingredients  

had to be manipulated for them to be within  compliance of Nestlé's nutritional standards.  

In particular, the sodium levels were off  the charts, and the dough was the culprit.

According to the American Heart Association, nine  out of 10 Americans consume too much sodium, and  

more than 70 percent of that comes from processed  and restaurant foods. A high sodium diet may cause  

puffiness, bloating, and weight gain, and it can  also put people at risk for osteoporosis, stroke,  

heart failure, and even stomach cancer. DiGiorno  pizza had an above-average sodium content in its  

crust, which was caused by the baking powder  that Kraft used for the signature rising dough.

"Sodium." "Well, if you don't  know anything about sodium now,  

I don't know what else we can do for ya."

After Nestlé acquired DiGiorno, Nestlé  executive Paul Bakus and his team  

created a pepperoni pizza with 10 percent less  sodium. At a tasting, he couldn't notice any  

difference with the new version, but pepperoni  lovers could. As the sodium problem persisted,  

Nestlé went on to try other solutions. They  toyed with the idea of replacing sodium chloride,  

or table salt, with the similar  compound potassium chloride.  

They also began featuring portion  control guidance on its packaging.

We've yet to get into the nitty-gritty of cheese,  and it's possible that DiGiorno prefers it that  

way, as it wasn't all that long ago that their  cheese made headlines for all the wrong reasons.  

In 2013, the animal rights group Mercy for  Animals released an undercover video that  

featured severe animal abuse at Wiese  Brothers' Farm in Greenleaf, Wisconsin.  

The video included footage of cows being beaten  and stabbed before being dragged by a tractor.

This was bad news for frozen pizza fans as it  turned out that the farm supplied the cheese  

for Nestle pizzas, including DiGiorno. At  the time, Nestlé spokesperson Deborah Cross  

said that the company was dedicated  to the humane treatment of animals.  

The company quickly cut off its supply of Wiese  farm cheese. In a statement, the Wiese family  

said that it was "shocked and saddened" by the  video. Today, the mozzarella used on DiGiorno  

pizza is still 100 percent sourced from the  Midwest, but not from this particular farm.

If there's one perfect food to pair with  pizza, it might just be chicken wings.  

Boneless wings have been slowly stealing the  spotlight from its more traditional brethren,  

so much so that in 2011 DiGiorno introduced  its Pizza & Boneless Wyngz combo box.  

The spelling of "wyngz" with a "y" and a "z" isn't  just a matter of the marketing department's effort  

to be cool. It's actually government-mandated  by the United States Department of Agriculture,  

as this product does not in fact  contain any meat from a chicken's wing.

As it turns out, wyngz are a chicken fritter  product, which means they're made with white-meat  

chicken, but not necessarily wing-meat chicken.  DiGiorno had even more rules to follow in addition  

to the spelling requirement. This included that  the product must contain white meat and the word  

"wyngz" had to be in the same color font and  not hidden inconspicuously on the packaging.  

Getting even weirder and more specific,  the smallest letter in "wyngz"  

could not be more than one-third smaller  than the largest letter in the name.

DiGiorno goes under a different name in the  frozen food section of the frozen north,  

and that name is Delissio. Nestlé owns both brand  names, as the two came together in a package deal,  

and Kraft had been selling frozen pizza in  Canada as Delissio as far back as the '80s.

When Nestlé took over in 2010, they decided to  keep the alternate brand name instead of pulling  

a switcheroo on an entire country. But there's no  need to look into any dual citizenship options,  

as Delissio offers the same features  as its American counterpart.  

It's known for its rise-in-the-oven crust,  and it uses the same marketing language.  

That means that north of the  border, the commercials end with:

"It's not delivery, it's Delissio." The best part of Delissio might  

just be its cheerful website, which  spouts off Canada-specific facts like:

"40 million DELISSIO pizzas are sliced  at Canadian pizza nights every year!"

and, "Nestlé is a proud partner of Food Banks Canada."

DiGiorno likes to have its fun on the internet.  There was that time in 2013 when the brand  

live-tweeted NBC's airing of The Sound of Music  Live! They also clap back at other brands,  

joke around with customers, and just put random  thoughts out into the Twittersphere, such as,

"Pizza sauce a blood type?"

But in September 2014, the brand really misread  the room. In the wake of NFL running back Ray  

Rice's assault on his then-fiancee,  the hashtags #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft  

were being used on Twitter to have a  conversation about domestic violence  

and for people to share their stories of abuse  and survival. Then DiGiorno chimed in with,

"#WhyIStayed You had pizza."

Angry responses arrived swiftly, with many  accusing the brand of shameless promotion.  

As it turns out, the social media team just  hadn't looked into the hashtag's meaning.  

They then tried to explain  the misstep by tweeting,

"A million apologies. Did not read what  the hashtag was about before posting."

Nestlé spokesperson Roz O'Hearn  later released a statement that said,

"This tweet was a mistake, quickly  realized as such and deleted seconds later.  

Our community manager — and the  entire DiGiorno team — is truly  

sorry. The tweet does not reflect  our values and we've been personally  

responding to everyone who has engaged  with us on social media. We apologize."

Indiana is known for many things. Its capital  is the great city of Indianapolis. It's the home  

state of NBA legend Larry Bird. And there  was also that time that a Little Caesars  

in the town of Griffith was accused of serving  DiGiorno pizzas. In 2018, a man named Vincent  

Romero recorded a video of a shopping cart  of DiGiorno frozen pizzas behind the counter  

at a K-Mart location of Little Caesars. He  then posted it on Twitter with the caption,

"This can't be happening right in front of me."

The video was eventually viewed over 4  million times on Twitter. Ultimately,  

the issue was cleared up when Kmart spokeswoman  Jill Proctor told media outlets that Kmart was  

disposing expired DiGiorno pizzas when the  video was shot. In a statement, Proctor said,

"Of course, Little Caesars only serves  freshly baked pizzas made from fresh dough.  

After some investigating, it turns out that what  appeared in this video was a funny coincidence."

Regardless of the reason behind this incident,  it turned everyone into quite the comedian.  

DiGiorno itself responded  to the original tweet with,

"We're just as curious as you."

Little Caesars then got in on the  action two days later by joking,

"Apparently, this store has a trade-in program."

To which DiGiorno replied,

"Two days to come up with that? Really?"

Besides its rising crust feature,  DiGiorno is best known for its tagline,

"It's not delivery. It's DiGiorno."

It's been featured in countless commercials,  and it's still stamped proudly on the top of  

its packaging. But has the slogan changed over  time? While the wording has stayed the same,  

has the attitude behind it been altered a bit?

A 2019 Eater article examined these questions by  arguing that DiGiorno's slogan has undergone a  

natural progression as the pizza delivery  concept has lost a bit of its shine.  

Gone are the days when parents leaving their  kids a couple of $20 bills to order pizza was  

something to get excited about. We can now order  just about any food we want thanks to third-party  

delivery apps. Pizza delivery at this point is so  common that we pretty much take it for granted.  

To brag that something isn't delivery isn't  saying much anymore. Thus DiGiorno has had to  

be more hard-hitting with its message to keep  up. One particular 2013 commercial features an  

insanely irresponsible delivery driver, and  slightly alters the famed catchphrase to:

"Thankfully it's not delivery, it's DiGiorno."

DiGiorno may still be using its same old slogan,  

even though delivery isn't the  measurement of pizza perfection anymore.

DiGiorno offers a handful of vegetarian options,  and it recently decided to take things one step  

further. In December 2019, it was reported that  a pizza topped with a meat alternative would be  

released in spring 2020 in tandem with another  Nestlé product, Stouffer's Meatless Lasagna.  

Both products were set to feature Awesome Grounds,  a plant-based meat substitute created by the  

company Sweet Earth. Awesome Grounds is made from  yellow pea protein, wheat gluten, and canola and  

coconut oils. It's textured to resemble ground  beef and holds 16 grams of protein and 4 grams  

of fiber per serving. Nestlé Foods Division  President John Carmichael said in a statement,

"There's no denying the current modern food  movement is revolutionizing the plant-based space.  

By adding Sweet Earth Awesome Grounds  to Stouffer's and DiGiorno offerings,  

we're able to offer our customers the chance to  incorporate plant-based meals into their diets  

while still enjoying the same convenience and  delicious flavor of brands they know and trust."

While the Awesome Grounds pizza is a great  option for vegetarians, it isn't fully vegan,  

as it still contains mozzarella cheese. On  behalf of all the vegans who love frozen pizza,  

here's hoping that DiGiorno is looking  into some cheese replacement possibilities.

During the COVID-19 pandemic,  frozen pizza has become  

a freezer staple and Digiorno's  sales have risen accordingly.

"People have started buying  up all the frozen pizza."

Nestlé has reportedly seen its frozen food  products increase steadily in popularity because  

of lockdown orders. By May 16, 2020, Americans had  spent more than $15.5 billion in the past eleven  

weeks on frozen food at the grocery store, a 40.2  percent increase from the same period in 2019.  

Additionally, Nielsen data showed that sales  of freezer units were also up. In April,  

they had increased by 195 percent compared  to the same period the previous year.

This is likely due to restaurant closures  worldwide, as well as shoppers desiring comfort  

food as the virus spreads. Even Nestlé Food  Division President John Carmichael is impressed as  

he's seen DiGiorno's sales spike upward over the  course of several months. He told CNN Business,

"It's a robust category that is getting  the biggest trial event in its history."

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