Mama Cozzi’s Pizza Kitchen is an in-house brand at discount grocer Aldi, owned by the same German company that owns Trader Joes. Aldi primarily contracts with food manufacturers to make products under brand names that Aldi has chosen, and they are quite often top manufacturers in the segment; Aldi offers the products for significantly less than the major brand names.
Past posts on Aldi include their frozen lasagna, cocktail sausages, and frozen “stone baked” pizza. Overall, I have been very satisfied with Aldi products over the years, and I think they present a good value.
Today I took a look at their (fresh) take and bake line, and picked up a 16″ “Mega Meat Thin Crust,” for $5.99, or 19 cents an ounce, a really great value. Compare this with my local pizzeria, who gets $25 + for the same size and ingredients.
The mega meat includes Italian sausage, pepperoni, beef pizza topping, bacon, and salami. Only the beef topping has extenders/additives, the other meats are pork and seasonings. For this product, Aldi chose Richelieu Foods, one of the largest private label manufacturers of fresh and frozen pizza. The company was named “Pizza Manufacturer of the Year” in 2006 by a leading trade magazine.
Richelieu is currently owned by Centerview Capital, a private equity firm. According to the pizza packaging, the product is made at USDA establishment M5699-P5699 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. The pictures below of the factory are from Google maps, and may or may not be accurate.
Instructions call for 12-15 minutes at 400, allow to cool 2 minutes before slicing. Once again, the box says “do not eat before cooking.” (Sad we have to have those kind of warnings in this day and age, isn’t it?).
Mine popped out (not literally) after 14 minutes, and I have to tell you, for my personal tastes, as well as the value, I find no fault with this product. Cracker crust, ample cheese and toppings, thick sliced pepperoni, great flavor with the salami and Italian sausage. Nice. I’d do it again. They do come shrink wrapped, so I imagine they can be frozen if you want to stock up. Note in the pix below, all the pepperoni is to one side, all the sausage to the other. That’s not the way they come, it was to placate a guest.
Unbaked, out of the box
Piles of Pepperoni
Beaver Dam Wisconsin Factory
Beaver Dam Wisconsin Factory
Mama Cozzis Mega Meat Thin Crust Pizza