“Mama Cozzi” is Aldi’s brand name for pizzas and related products. They come in a very wide variety of styles, both frozen and take and bake, and are value-priced like most all of Aldi’s products. I’ve reviewed quite a few of them in the past, read some of them here.
I’m a pizza snob, but I find most of them a tick above “satisfactory.” They are certainly better than Dominos, Caesars, Pizza Hut and 755 of the frozen pizzas on the market.
They had a new one this week, “Tavern Inn” – in the frozen counter, and it appealed to me right away because the package bragged about “one half pound of real Wisconsin cheese,” and you could see the cheese was cut in thick shreds instead of the finely diced method most frozen pies use. In my personal experience, I have found the former method of chees-ing on frozen pizzas makes for a better, and more even melt.
I thought this pie looked awfully familiar, and since Aldi employs a lot of brand name manufacturers to make their private label products, I would have been willing to bet this was made by Palermo’s in Milwaukee. It resembles their “P’Mo’s” brand pizza.
But when I looked up the factory number, I found they are actually made by Minnesota pizza company Bernatellos, who labels include Bellatoria, Roma, Orv’s, Real ‘Za, and “Brew Pub” and that’s the pie that Aldi’s Tavern Inn most closely resembles in appearance. Bernatellos plant is located in a distant northwestern exurb of Minneapolis, Maple Lake, pic below.
So popped this one in the oven, had picked out a combo sausage and pepperoni style, don’t know if there are others, didn’t look. It was done sooner than the package predicted for cook time, and I gotta say, I liked it. Really.
It’s a cracker thin crust, in fact if you look at the bottom, there are bumps and docking marks that almost makes it look like a matzoh. About the same crunch as well. Ths sausage chunks are good-sized, important to me, and either the sausage or pepperoni had some nice heat to it, which I also like. The sauce leans a little sweet for my personal taste, but tolerable, and the “half pound of real Wisconsin mozzarella?” Magnificent. Truly.
Aldi has been known to have some pizza styles that have come and gone, hope this isn’t one of them.
Mama Cozzis Tavern Style Pizza Review
Mama Cozzis Tavern Style Pizza Review
How did you figure out who the manufacturer was? Which numbers or information off the package did you use? I have to thank you for this article one of the Aldi’s that I go to ran out of this pizza and ordering from the manufacturer is likely I’m going to get my crack fiend addiction to this pizza fulfilled so thank you very much for the enlightening article. This pizza is notoriously delicious quite possibly the best one I’ve ever had from a store.
Sorry for the dealy in responding. The manufacturer of meat based products, the actual plant is revealed by the USDA establishment number on every package. If there’s a circle and it says “USDA Inspection” but there is no number, you will find it inside the box, on the cello wrap the product is in. Sometimes you have to look for it. Then, there are databases online of USDA factories, so you just have to search for the number. Thanks for reading. It is a pretty good pie. And you can’t beat Aldi prices, of course. You know they have a new competitor coming to the US, also from Germany like Aldi. Both of them have 10,000 stores worldwide. The competitor is called LIDL. They’ve landed on the eat coast already. Thanks for reading!
How did you figure out who the manufacturer was? Which numbers or information off the package did you use? I have to thank you for this article one of the Aldi’s that I go to ran out of this pizza and ordering from the manufacturer is likely I’m going to get my crack fiend addiction to this pizza fulfilled so thank you very much for the enlightening article. This pizza is notoriously delicious quite possibly the best one I’ve ever had from a store.
Sorry for the dealy in responding. The manufacturer of meat based products, the actual plant is revealed by the USDA establishment number on every package. If there’s a circle and it says “USDA Inspection” but there is no number, you will find it inside the box, on the cello wrap the product is in. Sometimes you have to look for it. Then, there are databases online of USDA factories, so you just have to search for the number. Thanks for reading. It is a pretty good pie. And you can’t beat Aldi prices, of course. You know they have a new competitor coming to the US, also from Germany like Aldi. Both of them have 10,000 stores worldwide. The competitor is called LIDL. They’ve landed on the eat coast already. Thanks for reading!