CT company buys Uno frozen pizza line
The Uno Foods frozen pizza line has been acquired by a Greenwich investment firm, which is adding it to its existing Great Kitchens Food subsidiary that sells “take and bake” pizzas sold in grocery stores like Stop & Shop and ShopRite.
Brynwood Partners did not reveal financial terms of its deal with the Norwood, Mass.-based parent company of Pizzeria Uno & Grill and its controlling shareholder Newport Global Advisors based in Texas. Pizzeria Uno has about 100 restaurants nationally, with Connecticut and Vermont the only Northeast states without a location.
Pizzeria Uno established its Uno Foods frozen pizza business in 1988, with products produced today in Brockton, Mass. The Pizzeria Uno brand dates back to 1943 under founder Ike Sewell in Chicago, where Great Kitchens Food has its headquarters and two production facilities under Brynwood ownership.
“There’s storied brands in Chicago, among which Pizzeria Uno is ... [among] the best known because it invented deep-dish pizza,” said Henk Hartong III, CEO of Brynwood Partners.
Brynwood has a number of packaged food companies in its existing portfolio, including fresh pasta maker Buitoni Food and Hometown Foods which sells a number of supermarket brands under the Pillsbury, Funfetti and Hungry Jack brands among others. In early January, Brynwood backed Hometown’s purchase of the Birch Benders brand of pancake mixes, toaster waffles, and other baking mixes, frostings and syrups.
With the addition of Pizzeria Uno, Brynwood companies now have roughly $2.5 billion in annual sales and a combined workforce of some 4,500 people. That includes employees of Stamford-based Harvest Hill Beverage, whose brands include SunnyD, Juicy Juice, and Veryfine.
In addition to its signature deepdish pies — cheese, pepperoni, sausage and a supreme are distributed today — Uno Foods sells pizza with traditional crusts, thin crusts and flatbread varieties, as well as calzones.
In 1988 when Pizzeria Uno began arriving in supermarket freezers, a homegrown Connecticut brand was gaining a larger following with a helping hand from actor Julia Roberts, after the release that year of the feature film Mystic Pizza. The Mystic Pizza Food Co. cashed in on its fame with a line of frozen pizzas that remain a staple in Connecticut supermarkets today.
Westport-based Newman’s Own would introduce its own line in 2008 that it continues to expand, including with a “stone-fired” pizza last year. And more recently, West Haven’s Zuppardi’s Apizza and 850 Degrees Wood Fired Pizza in Ridgefield are among the pizzerias that have come out with frozen lines for grocery stores.
It remains a crowded shelf in the supermarket freezer, with names like DiGiorno, Red Baron, Tombstone and California Pizza Kitchen among the better selling brands today.
“The frozen-pizza business exploded during the pandemic and the lock-down period, because everyone was looking for solutions they could provide for families that they could produce at home,” Hartong said. “We’ve come to a different point in the recovery from the pandemic and the current economic cycle . ... Whatever the reason for it becoming more difficult or less affordable for home-based delivery, store-based products are becoming more popular because they are high quality and brands that you know.”