Walk down the aisles of any supermarket in America and you’ll find products from around the world. Camembert from France, peppers from New Zealand, mangoes from Mexico, even apple juice from China. But frozen pizza?
NHPR's Jon Greenberg explores an endeavor to satisfy the American palette that really goes the distance. His report is part of Think Global, public radio's week of special coverage.
To say frozen pizza is to speak of convenience and practicality. Three food groups delivered expeditiously in every bite and ready in just minutes. In a pinch, the meal is its own plate. What could be easier?
It isn't very glamorous, but, no one expects it to be.
Certainly not my friends Mike Gugliamo, of Italian extraction by way of Long Island, and his girl friend Christina.
Tape: (my voice) pizza man's here.
I haven't told them why I've come to their house to have them try this pizza from Hannaford, our local supermarket.
Tape: (my voice) You want triple cheese or vegetable? Vegetable has olives, artichokes
Mike opts for the triple cheese. He might of done better with the vegetable. In any event, off comes the plastic wrapper (sfx)
Tape:Mike Oven's up to temperature// In it goes (sfx oven sound)
With the pizza safely in the oven, I finally let them read the box.
Tape: Mike: Product of Italy but sold by Hannaford's? What did they import it?//They did// Chris: So that's for real, that it's from Italy?//Yeah// Really.
While the pizza bakes and we wait for the taste test, let's ponder this improbability. This slab of dough, cheese and sauce began its life a long way from Concord, New Hampshire.
Music: Beppe Bambetta and Carlo Aonzo track 2 (La Doccia – mandolin and guitar, a classic Mazurka)
Half-baked and frozen, in batches of about 2500, the pizza leaves a factory in Modena, in northern Italy. It travels by truck a hundred miles to the Mediterranean port of La Spezia. Packed in a refrigerated container, it crosses the Mediterranean, through the straits of Gibraltar and across the Atlantic.
Tape: Shipping horn blast, sounds of NY container terminal
It lands at a New York dock, where it's met by trucks and carried away to Hannaford stores in New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and New York.
There it will wait for shoppers in freezers reserved exclusively for a line of Hannaford frozen offerings called On the Go Bistro.
[supermarket sounds – run them under this next section – standard sounds]
You can take one home for the price of four dollars and 49 cents at the checkout.
The man behind this elaborate dance of baking and shipping is a young, dark haired vice president, Mark Doiron. He began working at Hannaford as a bagger when he was 15 and has spent almost his entire career working here.
Five years ago he and other Hannaford executives looked around with a worried air. They saw discounters like Wal-Mart eating up a larger and larger share of the food business.
Tape: (in cue 10:20) We said look. Here's the world and how it's changing. Here' are the supercenters coming into the marketplace. Driving commodities and driving price. And we said, OK, what is our place in the marketplaces that we operate in? What are we going to be, that will not only allow us to survive but to thrive in that marketplace?
The company began to recast itself as a place where shoppers would feel they were getting higher quality without paying top dollar. At first, imported pizza wasn't a part of that makeover, but it turns out, shoppers who don't have time to cook take their pizza pretty seriously, and Doiron and company decided to rise to the challenge.
Tape: (in cue 8:25) we wanted to find a brick oven pizza, high quality, all natural ingredients. All we could find in US was an oven fired pizza with the more traditional thicker crust. But that brick fired oven puts a flavor profile that you can't duplicate. So, it drove us to Italy.
That's a long way to go for a flavor profile and the trip might have been a one-way ticket if it weren't something that few shoppers here know about Hannaford. It is not owned by an American company.
Sound of Dutch commercial
That's an ad for the Delhaize store in Belgium. Delhaize owns supermarkets in Europe, the U-S and Asia. Its network made two things happen.
It made it possible to bundle the pizzas with other goods and ship them at a low cost.
And because Delhaize owns other American supermarkets up and down the Eastern Seaboard, there was a big enough market for the pizzas to make financial sense. The company says they are moving fast in stores from Portland, Maine to Largo, Florida.
Doiron says Hannaford now has what he calls a global initiative. His next trip is to Hong Kong and Thailand to find new items, ones that Wal-Mart won't carry.
Tape: (In cue:8:43) Anybody can sell the commodities. The winner is the one that can provide solutions and items that are uniquely yours. If I've met a need, and made it easier for you. I've created some loyalty, I've created a relationship. I've created a brand. And that's the key.
Bill Bishop has been a researcher and consultant in the supermarket business for more than 25 years. He says what Hannaford is doing is right in line with the industry zeitgeist -- using the global touch to make an impression on shoppers.
Tape: When you get a super premium vodka. It isn't 3 times as good as other vodkas on any measurable scale, but you may spend 3 times as much, because you're proud, pleased, it reinforces who you are and that's why you buy it.
Which isn't to say that taste doesn't matter at all. So back we go to Mike and Christina's kitchen.
Tape: (sfx pizza out of oven) It's ready.
Mike: It smells good. Definitely smells like NY pizza
He gives us each a slice.
Christine: 3:08 It's good. Absolutely. It's not as good as your pizzeria pizza but it's good//Mike: I don't like it. / Christina: You're spoiled.
Just another night in Concord. Eating pizza made in Italy. Maybe we're all a little spoiled.
This is Jon Greenberg
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