Totino's is a brand of
frozen pizza
Pizza is an Italian, specifically Neapolitan, dish typically consisting of a flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomato, cheese, and other ingredients, baked at a high temperature, traditionally in a wood-fired oven.
The ...
products owned by
General Mills
General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...
, best known for their
pizza rolls. Totino's was founded as a restaurant in the 1950s in
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
, which expanded to frozen foods in the 1960s. They also operate the Jeno's brand.
History
Jim Totino founded a take-out
pizzeria
A pizzeria is a restaurant focusing on pizza.
A pizzeria may offer take-away, where the customer orders their food either in advance or at the restaurant and then takes the prepared food with them in a pizza box. A pizzeria may deliver food to ...
in
Minneapolis
Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...
,
Minnesota
Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...
, on February 7, 1951. After customers regularly tried to eat in the store, they expanded to a
full-service restaurant,
which relocated to
Mound's View in 2008 before closing in 2011.
Totino's expanded as a frozen-pizza manufacturing company in the 1960s, first selling frozen pastas out of their restaurant, then expanding to frozen pizza when they purchased a plant in
St. Louis Park, Minnesota in 1961.
In 1970, they built a larger-capacity plant in
Fridley.
The Totinos sold their frozen pizza business to the
Pillsbury Company
Pillsbury is an American brand of baking and dough products, marketed by General Mills and Brynwood Partners. Pillsbury products include refrigerated and frozen dough products, including the Toaster Strudel, marketed by General Mills; and shel ...
in 1975, where
Rose Totino
Rosenella Winifred Cruciani "Rose" Totino (January 16, 1915 – June 21, 1994) was an American entrepreneur and pizzeria owner whose frozen pizza business co-founded with her husband became the foundation for the Totino's brand. When selling t ...
was named as vice-president. After the acquisition, Rose Totino helped develop a new in-house crust and the brand grew nationwide.
By the 1970s, they were the top-selling frozen pizza in the United States.
Totino-Grace High School in Fridley was renamed after the brand's founders in 1980.
Separately,
Jeno Paulucci developed a series of food businesses starting in the late 1940s, including the
Chun King line of Chinese foods.
After selling Chun King in 1966, he founded Jeno's Inc. in 1968, where cook and product developer
Beatrice Ojakangas developed
pizza rolls,
a type of
egg roll
The egg roll is a variety of deep-fried appetizer served in American Chinese restaurants. It is a cylindrical, savory roll with shredded cabbage, chopped meat, or other fillings inside a thickly wrapped wheat flour skin, which is fried in ...
filled with pizza ingredients. The first pizza roll flavor was cheese.
In 1985, Paulucci sold his Jeno's Pizza Rolls brand to Pillsbury for $135 million.
The Jeno's line of pizza rolls was rebranded as Totino's in 1993.
Totino's was acquired by
General Mills
General Mills, Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded ultra-processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in ...
with its purchase of Pillsbury in 2001.
Health and nutrition issues
On November 1, 2007, Totino's and Jeno's brand pizza were recalled for ''
E. coli
''Escherichia coli'' ( )Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. is a gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escherichia'' that is commonly foun ...
'' contamination.
Totino's products contain
cheese substitutes made with
hydrogenated oil
Fat hydrogenation is the process of combining unsaturated fat with hydrogen in order to partially or completely convert it into saturated fat. Typically this hydrogenation is done with liquid vegetable oils resulting in solid or semi-solid fats.
...
.
Totino's products have been criticized for their high amount of
trans fat
Trans fat is a type of unsaturated fat that occurs in foods. Small amounts of trans fats occur naturally, but large amounts are found in some processed foods made with partially hydrogenated oils. Because consumption of trans fats is associated ...
and
sodium
Sodium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Na (from Neo-Latin ) and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 element, group 1 of the peri ...
.
In 2011, ''
Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports (CR), formerly Consumers Union (CU), is an American nonprofit consumer organization dedicated to independent product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy.
Founded ...
'' rated Totino's as "only fair for nutrition" because of "high
total fat and trans fat and low
fiber
Fiber (spelled fibre in British English; from ) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often inco ...
."
Packaging on Totino's brand pizza now indicates 0 trans fats per serving.
In pop culture
Saturday Night Live
''Saturday Night Live'' (''SNL'') is an American Late night television in the United States, late-night live television, live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The ...
featured a popular series of ad parodies for Totino's Pizza Rolls in the 2010s, starring
Vanessa Bayer
Vanessa Bayer (born November 14, 1981) is an American actress and comedian. She was a cast member on the NBC sketch comedy series ''Saturday Night Live'' from 2010 to 2017, for which she was nominated for an Emmy. She co-created, co-executive pr ...
.
See also
*
List of frozen food brands
This is a list of frozen food brands. Frozen food is food that is Freezing, frozen from the time it is produced to the time it is
either Frozen food#Defrosting, defrosted or Cooking, cooked by the consumer, or eaten while still frozen.
Frozen f ...
References
External links
Totinos historyvia General Mills
General Mills Totino's and Jeno's page
{{General Mills
1951 establishments in Minnesota
2011 disestablishments in Minnesota
Defunct restaurants in the United States
Frozen food brands
Frozen pizza brands
General Mills brands
Pizzerias in the United States
Products introduced in the 20th century
Restaurants established in 1951