Thank This Woman for Making Frozen Pizza Delicious
“We didn’t plan on setting the world on fire. We just knew how to make good pizza.” Rose Totino
Hello friends! Happy Wednesday! If you’re rubbing your eyes thinking “did Kate really send us a newsletter at 3 AM?”… the answer is yes. Gotta love election night insomnia. I preemptively kept it light today knowing it could be a hard day for some and what’s lighter than pizza? While our woman of the week is not responsible for patenting or having the idea for frozen pizza, she is responsible for making it delicious. Who knew a housewife from Minneapolis would turn her PTA pizzas into a million-dollar empire? Meet Rose Totino!
Quick housekeeping note: There will be no Women Wednesday next week! We will be back on November 17. It’s possible I will send some pictures of my parent’s adorable dog Leo to make up for the absence of a newsletter.
Rose Totino
If you look at Rose Totino’s origin story, you’re probably surprised she became the head of a frozen pizza empire. She was one of seven kiddos in an Italian immigrant family living in Minneapolis in the early 1900s. Her family was so poor she had to drop out of school to pick up a full-time job cleaning houses. They also faced discrimination because her parents had immigrated from Italy. It’s said that a young Rose got into a little verbal tussle with the Mayor when her father was fired from his job for not being a documented citizen. I can only imagine what she said because he got his job back but go, girl! Never underestimate Italian women, we’re like a dog with a bone, and I mean that in the best way possible.
Eventually, Rose gets married to a baker named Jim and starts popping out kiddos. She’s very involved in their student lives and serves on the PTA. During her volunteer shifts, she starts bringing pizzas with her for the kids and their parents to enjoy. That went over like gangbusters because who doesn’t love pizza made by a second-generation Italian? Seriously though, my dad is like fourth-generation Italian (I think?) and my friends growing up went gaga for his pasta sauce that wasn’t even homemade. He just knows his way around a bottle of olive oil and garlic. ANYWAY, back to Rose.
Rose is making these amazing pizzas and her husband is a baker so they are constantly working together to get the recipe right. Word gets out about how good their pizzas are and they start catering events. The Totino’s wanted to open a restaurant but they didn’t have the money for the bank loan. This sounds weird but people didn’t really know what pizza was in the Midwest in the 1950s which made it hard to sell their idea to the bank for a loan. But Rose was a little (like actually little, she was under 5 foot) business genius and baked a pizza to bring to the bankers. The loan committee was sold and gave them the money to open Totino’s Italian Kitchen. For any Minnesotans, you might know it as “Old Totino’s.”
The restaurant was a family affair. Rose and her hubs were in the kitchen and their kids helped as servers or making pizzas. It was grueling hard work. Rose said they were so tired some nights they would just shove all the money they made that day into a brown paper bag and pay their vendors directly out of the bag. Once the bag started having money left over after paying the vendors, they knew they were on to something. Eventually, they bought a plant to start making frozen pizza and pasta dishes. Frozen pizza already existed but it tasted like cardboard with sauce on it. Rose knew they could do better. Unfortunately, it didn’t go so well at first and they almost had to declare bankruptcy. But, thanks to a loan from the Small Business Administration (that’s right, people, you can thank the U.S. Government for frozen pizza), they got their frozen pizza empire off the ground. Their frozen pizzas went from local, to statewide, to nationwide freezer shelves. They were so successful that they sold the business to Pillsbury for $22 million! Please note that they had an initial offer of $16 million and Rose turned them down saying it was “God’s will” that she get $20 million or no dice. I’m telling you, she was a fierce business lady. She stayed on with Totino’s after they sold to Pillsbury and used her people skills to make deals happen. She also helped patent the crisp crust technology that gave frozen pizza crust the consistency of a real pizza instead of an old tire.
Sadly, her hubs died a few years later. Rose still worked at Pillsbury until she was pushed into retirement by their mandatory retirement age. Even when she was a big wig VP, she still loved helping out cooking and cleaning at the restaurant. After her death, Rose was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame and was the first woman inducted into the Frozen Food Hall of Fame. Although Totino’s restaurant closed in 2011, its memory still lives on in many hearts. I only wish I could go taste the crispy, delicious pizza in real life.
A Little Thanks
I wanted to end this week with a short and sweet thank you to the many readers of this newsletter! For the OG’s, this started as an Instagram story series during Black History Month in 2019. Only friends and family read it. It has grown into this newsletter which now has more subscribers I’ve never met than subscribers I have, which is a surreal feeling. The coolest part is all the people who text and email me saying they enjoyed this week’s newsletter or something they learned. That’s my whole goal of writing this. Thanks again for tuning in every week! I still do a little tap dance every time I get a new subscriber.
Alright, that’s it for this week! See you in TWO weeks!
Citations
“Rose Totino Brought Pizza to the Masses” Star Tribune
“Rose Totino, Patron Genius of Frozen Pizza” Mental Floss
“Bonnie Totino Brenny: My Mother’s Legacy” Minnesota Historical Society
“Totino’s closing after 60 years” Twin Cities Daily Planet
“Rose Totino Brought Pizza to Masses: ‘Money Never Changed Her’” Star Tribune