Through a pandemic, dietary trends, and other shifts in the food industry, consumers continue to crave pizza. This consistent demand creates an opportunity for restaurants to expand and innovate their pizza offerings, but creating an authentically Italian and personalized pie for each dining patron is no easy task.
Rich’s has responded to the call for authentic pizza solutions that reflect more globally inspired varieties with a diversified product portfolio, ranging from dough balls and parbaked crusts to fully topped pizzas.
Even labor-challenged restaurants can offer creative pizza pies, as the Rich’s menu includes a variety of high-quality options, many that simply go from freezer to oven, and then to hungry customers.
79 years ago, the family-owned company began with a non-dairy topping innovation and has never looked back. Rich’s has since expanded into a 5.5-billion-dollar business with multiple categories, including desserts, bakery, pizza and flatbread, appetizers, and specialty toppings: all used in homes, restaurants, bakeries, c-stores, schools, and even colleges and universities around the world.
“We operate in 106 countries, and we’re an extraordinarily well-run company with a mandate to stay private, family owned, and customer-obsessed. This underpins our mantra to do what’s right, no matter what, for our customers and our associates,” said Donna Reeves-Collins, Senior Vice President of the Pizza and Flatbread Category at Rich’s.
In 2013, the company embarked on a strategy to become the “single-source solution” for operators serving pizza.
“We’d just acquired a company with well-regarded capabilities for parbaked crusts and flatbreads: a space ripe for innovation. Over the past 10 years we have built, bought, and assembled the most robust set of pizza capabilities – everything from frozen dough to fully topped pizza capabilities and everything in between, including gluten-free and plant-based. We stay focused on what consumers want and what operators need amidst the evolving market dynamics,” Reeves-Collins reflected.
Many consumers still view food, and pizza in particular, as an affordable luxury. “They’re willing to spend money if the experience is worth it, and they are definitely also looking for more authentic, innovative varieties,” Reeves-Collins observed.
“They don’t want the plain pizza they’ve been eating all the time; they want more globally- or regionally inspired pizzas, so operators are seeking ways to deliver on these expectations. Operators look to Rich’s to help them by bringing those products to the market,” she continued.
To feed customers and support operators with a constant flow of innovation, the company developed unique capabilities (R&D and infrastructure) to offer a full spectrum of pizza products.
Their offerings include Rich’s Double Zero “00”-style flour products (which mimics the flour grown and milled in Italy); a gluten-free Detroit-Style crust that, when customers sample, “they swear it isn’t gluten-free,” Reeves-Collins claimed; and several cauliflower-based crusts for a more health-conscious crowd.
Reeves-Collins also highlighted the company’s infamous and versatile dough ball, which can be flattened into pies, folded into calzones, swirled into cinnamon rolls, or molded into any other form that suits the operator’s needs and the consumers’ tastes.
“One of the most amazing products that Rich’s invented was our Fresh ‘N Ready pizza dough that operators can take directly from the freezer and sauce it, cheese it, top it, and pop it into the oven and deliver on an amazing pizza experience every time,” Reeves-Collins simplified.
Most recently, Rich’s added two sizes of an Italian Pinsa (pronounced “peen-sa”) to its portfolio. The team first encountered the Pinsa after attending a food show in Germany, where they “almost couldn’t find a regular crust; it was all Pinsa,” Reeves-Collins said.
“We agreed that, as a leader in pizza, we needed to build out our Authentically Italian product roadmap. So we went to ‘ground zero’ and took the product development team to Rome, Italy, and ate Pinsa at countless locations. You might envision Italy as the home of pizza and assume they’ve discovered everything by now, but the Pinsa has taken Europe by storm.”
The Pinsa crust utilizes “a very different high-hydration formula with lots of ferment time and a couple of different flours, not just wheat; it’s usually a wheat and rice combination, or wheat, rice, and soy flours, and these combinations create a very unique texture,” Reeves-Collins explained.
The result is “a very different experience for consumers,” she contended. “You’ll know it’s an authentic Italian variety when you eat it. It’s thicker than a traditional-style pizza with a large, open-cell structure, resulting in a crust that’s crispy on the top and bottom with a buttery middle. The crisp exterior and tenderness in the middle really bring the Pinsa together.”
As evidenced by their most recent international travels, the Rich’s R&D and product development team aims to “fill in and expand, innovate and be first to market, and ultimately be a leader in the pizza niche,” Reeves-Collins said.
“We do this by listening to customers, deeply understanding the consumer trends, attending and presenting at shows, and continuously developing our robust network of frozen dough capabilities. One area where we excel is our ability to match any operator’s formula, and to help them with a more convenient frozen format that can create the same experience for their customers – conveniently, consistently, and with less waste. There is no company that does this better!”
“More today than ever before, operators face many challenges from reduced demand driven by inflation, labor costs, and availability, and they need to focus on inspiring customers to come more frequently. Rich’s helps operators do this with our convenient products and innovation. Working with operators to help streamline their operations with our convenient, authentic products are not only driving demand, but they are also improving operators’ bottom lines. It is really rewarding work,” Reeves-Collins envisioned.
“As a foodservice provider, we listen to every segment in the industry with an emphasis on the consumer, because they’re the people who ultimately purchase and repurchase the product. Rich’s job is to ensure that it works for our operators and that our pizza products maintain the quality and experience that keep consumers coming back.”
For operators and distributors seeking more information about Rich’s pizza portfolio and other food products, begin by visiting the pizza section of website Richs USA’s website.
