Understanding the Midwest: Frozen Pizza Edition

REALTORS® are, for all intents and purposes, in the business of understanding people. They don't sell houses really; they listen, analyze and counsel people. Thus, having a thorough grasp on what makes your clients tick is crucial.

With this in mind, if you're a REALTOR® working in the Midwest (aka "The Heartland" aka "Flyover County"), new research suggests that you should start learning to love frozen pizza, assuming you don't already.

Why? Because people in the Midwest seriously love frozen pizza.

From an AP story:

...the typical Midwesterner ate frozen pizza 22 times last year — a rate nearly double the national average of about 13 times a year, according to a study by a New York market research firm.

That's right -- the Midwest is King of Frozen Pizza Mountain, and by a wide margin. The lowest levels of frozen pizza consumption can be found in the New England region -- a scant 6 times per year, on average. If you're from that part of the world, you're probably asking yourself: "Seriously? Frozen pizza 22 times a year? The stale, dry, flavorless, cardboardy, tacky stuff? Frozen pizza?"

Yer darn tooin'. 22 a year even seems a little low.

So why the obsession with a low-cost, low quality pizza that the rest of the world doesn't seem to share our unhealthy love for? Some potential explanations from the article:

• Tradition? Perhaps it’s the food’s local roots. After all, the Midwest did popularize the stuff. Credit goes to Rose Totino, who in 1951 opened a pizzeria in Minneapolis. The growing demand for frozen foods overall persuaded her that pizza needed a slice of the business, and in 1962 she launched the first popular national frozen pizza brand.
• Lack of a better alternative? The East and West Coasts have strong pizza cultures, she said. New York was home to the first licensed American pizzeria and California’s innovative chefs (such as Wolfgang Puck) are credited with pushing pizza in new and exciting directions. “The Midwest was generally settled by immigrants from countries that didn’t make pizza, and they really didn’t develop their own style, with the exception of Chicago deep dish, which arguably is not a real pizza,” Stuckey said. “Because of that, pizza in the restaurant segment is probably stronger on the coasts, and so people need to scratch that itch less frequently with frozen pizza,” she said.
• Heartland frugality? “That’s because we have great sales. Five pizzas for $10,” she said. “You take them home and doctor them up. You can’t beat that.”

The real reason likely lies in a combination of all three. Whatever the cause, when you bite into that Tombstone, Jack's, Digiorno or even Heggies this weekend, enjoy it without remorse. Odds are good your neighbors are doing the very same thing.

Comments

[broke]

I really can not accept the statement that Chicago was settled by people who didn't understand pizza. There is a huge Italian community in Chicago! Also, it is not only famous for deep dish, but also a very good local variety of thin crust. How can you even think to suggest that the West Cost, with its "tradition" of new-age chicken and cilantro blond pizzas are considered pizza, when deep-dish Chicago style is not? This is an outrage. As for the rest of the Midwest, yeah, they have no taste :).

[Jeff Allen]

DISS

Illinois is lumped together with Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio in a category that pulls down 16 frozen 'zas per year.