Pizza Grandiosa (colloquially also referred to simply as Grandiosa or Grandis) refers to the most popular brand of
frozen pizza
Pizza (, ) is a dish of Italian origin consisting of a usually round, flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomatoes, cheese, and often various other ingredients (such as various types of sausage, anchovies, mushrooms, onion ...
in Norway. Grandiosa can also refer to the series of different Grandiosa variants. ''Grandiosa'' is Italian for ''great'' or ''grand''.
History
Production of the original Grandiosa started on 11 February 1980, then produced by
Nora (now
Stabburet
Stabburet is a Norwegian food producer founded by Gunnar Nilsen in 1943. Stabburet is a part of Orkla Foods, and has ten factories in southern Norway. It sells well-known brands, such as Grandiosa, Big One, Nugatti
Nugatti is a Norwegian bran ...
) in
Stranda
Stranda is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal county, Norway. It is part of the Sunnmøre region. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Stranda. Stranda consists of three smaller villages and one larger central villag ...
in
Sunnmøre
Sunnmøre (, en, South- Møre) is the southernmost traditional district of the western Norwegian county of Møre og Romsdal. Its main city is Ålesund. The region comprises the municipalities ( no, kommuner) of Giske, Hareid, Herøy, Norddal ...
. Grandiosa was one of the first frozen pizzas produced in Norway. The pizza became vastly popular and is still the most sold pizza brand in Norway, in defiance of increasing competition from other local and international brands. In 2002 Stabburet responded to increased competition in the frozen food segment by reviving the brand with creative marketing and several new versions of Grandiosa. The pizza is also exported in smaller numbers to the neighbouring countries Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Poland and Iceland.
The pizza is subject to a lot of humorous debate, and is unquestionably a piece of modern culture, loathed and loved by Norwegians. It has been called the "modern national dish" by some, others claim it is "a piece of cardboard", "laziness in a box" and even "refrigerated evil".
In 2005 Grandiosa got its own unofficial book, ''Grandiosaland''.
The book contains stories about a man who had a broken jaw and had to put his Grandiosa in a blender to eat it, and many other stories about Grandiosa, and favourite Norwegian pastimes such as ''hyttetur'' (trips to cabins typically located close to the sea/fjords or up in the mountains), ''
russetid'' (the close to lawless celebration of the high school graduation) and ''
dugnad'' (the collective activity of helping one another with mutual tasks through unpaid and voluntary work of importance to the community).
Market
Stabburet has used creative marketing to promote Grandiosa. Examples are their very successful SMS-vote marketing campaign for selecting new addition to the pizza in 2004. Another example is their hit mobile
ring tone
A ringtone, ring tone or ring is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call. Originally referring to and made by the electromechanical striking of bells, the term now refers to any sound on any device alerting of a new incoming ...
"''Respekt for Grandiosa''" (Respect for Grandiosa) which 300,000 downloaded within 1.5 months.
A total of 260 million pizzas have been sold. Twenty-four million units of Grandiosa are produced each year for the 5,4 million citizens of Norway.
Varieties
In addition to the original Grandiosa, there exist different varieties.
See also
*
List of frozen food brands
This is a list of frozen food brands. Frozen food is food that is frozen from the time it is produced to the time it is
either defrosted or cooked by the consumer, or eaten while still frozen.
Frozen food brands
* Amy's Kitchen
* Aunt ...
References
External links
Grandiosa NorwayGrandiosa FinlandGrandiosa Sweden
{{Coord, 62.31278, N, 6.94559, E, source:placeopedia, display=title
Norwegian cuisine
Orkla ASA
Frozen pizza brands