Totino's and Jeno's are brands of frozen pizza products owned by

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company or ...

History

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. After selling the ...

and her husband, Jim, founded a take-out

pizzeria A pizzeria is a restaurant focusing on pizza. As well as pizza, dishes at pizzerias can include kebab, salads and pasta. Many pizzerias offer take-away, where the customer orders their food either in advance or at the restaurant and then take ...

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origin ...

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over t ...

, in 1951. They later expanded it to a full-service restaurant, which closed in 2011. They also founded a frozen-pizza manufacturing company. The Totinos eventually sold their frozen pizza business to the

Pillsbury Company The Pillsbury Company is a Minneapolis, Minnesota-based company that was one of the world's largest producers of grain and other foodstuffs until it was bought by General Mills in 2001. General Mills brands consist of Annie's, Betty Crocker, Nat ...

, where Rose Totino was named as vice-president. Totino’s brand was acquired by

with its purchase of Pillsbury. Separately, Jeno Paulucci developed a series of food businesses starting in the late 1940s, including the

Chun King Chun King was an American brand of canned Chinese food products founded in the 1940s by Jeno Paulucci, who also developed ''Jeno's Pizza Rolls'' and frozen pizza, and the '' Michelina's'' brand of frozen food products, among many others. By 1962, C ...

line of Chinese foods. After selling Chun King in 1966, he founded Jeno’s Inc. in 1968, where he developed

Pizza Rolls Pizza snack rolls (also called pizza rolls, pizza bites, pizza snacks, or pizza poppers) are a frozen food product consisting of bite-sized breaded pizza pockets with an interior of tomato sauce, imitation cheese and various pizza toppings. They ...

, a type of

egg roll Egg rolls are a variety of deep-fried appetizers served in American Chinese restaurants. An egg roll is a cylindrical, savory roll with shredded cabbage, chopped meat, or other fillings inside a thickly-wrapped wheat flour skin, which is frie ...

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 Pizza snack rolls (also called pizza rolls, pizza bites, pizza snacks, or pizza poppers) are a frozen food product consisting of bite-sized breaded pizza pockets with an interior of tomato sauce, imitation cheese and various pizza toppings. They ...

was rebranded as Totino's in 1993.

Advertising

In 2019, it was announced that the company would partner with

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

and the

Call of Duty ''Call of Duty'' is a first-person shooter video game franchise published by Activision. Starting out in 2003, it first focused on games set in World War II. Over time, the series has seen games set in the midst of the Cold War, futuristic ...

franchise for in-game unlocks through purchases of Totino's products.

Product lines

* Totino's Big Party Pizza: Cheese, Pepperoni * Totino's Party Pizza: Canadian style bacon, Cheese, Classic pepperoni, Triple Pepperoni, Combination, Hamburger, Pepperoni, Pepperoni trio, Sausage, Supreme, Three cheese, Three meat * Totino's Family Size Pizza: Pepperoni, Cheese, Combination, Sausage * Totino's

snacks: Cheese, Cheesy taco, Combination, Pepperoni, Pepperoni trio, Sausage, Supreme, Triple cheese, Triple meat, Nacho Cheese, Buffalo Chicken, Spicy Taco, Bacon & Pepperoni, Macaroni and Cheese & Bacon, cheeseburger. * Totino's Pizza Stuffers: Pepperoni, Cheese, Combination * Totino's Pizza Chips: Pepperoni * Jeno's Crisp 'N Tasty Pizza: Pepperoni, Cheese, Combination, Supreme (All Jeno's Crisp 'N Tasty Pizza discontinued May 2018)

Health and nutrition issues

On November 1, 2007, Totino's and Jeno's brand pizza were recalled for E. coli contamination. Totino's products contain cheese substitutes made with

hydrogenated oil Fat hydrogenation is the process of combining fat – typically liquid vegetable oils – with hydrogen, to convert some or all of the unsaturated fat into saturated fat, resulting in a solid or semi-solid fat. Changing the degree of saturation ...

. Totino's products have been criticized for their high amount of

trans fat Trans fat, also called trans-unsaturated fatty acids, or trans fatty acids, is a type of unsaturated fat that naturally occurs in small amounts in meat and milk fat. It became widely produced as an unintentional byproduct in the industrial pr ...

and

sodium Sodium is a chemical element with the symbol Na (from Latin ''natrium'') and atomic number 11. It is a soft, silvery-white, highly reactive metal. Sodium is an alkali metal, being in group 1 of the periodic table. Its only stable ...

. 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. Found ...

'' rated Totino's as "only fair for nutrition" because of "high

total fat Total may refer to: Mathematics * Total, the summation of a set of numbers * Total order, a partial order without incomparable pairs * Total relation, which may also mean ** connected relation (a binary relation in which any two elements are compa ...

and trans fat and low

fiber Fiber or fibre (from la, fibra, links=no) 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 incorporate ...

." By at least October 2013, packaging on Totino's brand pizza now indicates 0 trans fat per serving.

References

External links