Rose Totino & Frozen pizza



Rose Totino



Do you know who is Rose Totino? She was the first person who came up with the idea of frozen pizza. I guess many Korean don’t know who she was, because Korean loves to eat food that is just cooked and still hot. Here I am going to tell you how awesome she was!

She was born in 1915 at Minnesota. She was the fourth out of seven children. Her parents were both Italian immigrant. When Rose Totino was 16, she dropped out of school in order to support her family’s income. She was like many other Italian-Americans she was raised with the Italian culture that family centered. The other event that had affected Rose Totino was Great Depression. A lot of young women dropped out of school to work during this period, while young men stayed to learn.



Jim and Rose (Rose's husband left)

Rose met her husband Jim Totino at the Viking Dance Hall near where she lived, and they got married. Lather, Rose and her husband opened a Totino’s Italian Kitchen. During that time, it was rare to have a pizza takeout restaurant in the area. Since the pizza was relatively new, Rose had to bring samples of pizza to a bank loan officer, so she could get support from financing. The restaurant opened on February 7, 1951. Their pizzas were so popular that they sold 500 pizzas every day. Totino’s Pizza became the top selling pizza in supermarkets across the U.S.



Frozen Pizza



After then years after they stared the business, Rose came up with the idea to sell frozen pizzas to customers, so people can bake their pizza at home. This is because, lots of women were busy at working, and they didn’t have time to make proper meal for themselves. At 1970, the Totino frozen pizza was the number one frozen pizza in the United States.



Frozen Pizza Baked



In 1981, Totino’s Pizza was bought to Pillsbury by $22 million. Moreover, Pillsbury offered her a job as vice president of their company. She became one of the top female executives in the world of business. Totino gave millions to charity and to schools. She also helped finance several civic projects. In addiction, she gave money to her mother’s hometown for church repairs and to help build a new school. Her husband died in 1981. Rose died from cancer in 1994. She was 79.

Rose Totino was described as a warm, kind, and generous human being. Her life gives us strength of what people can do with talent and a bit of hard work.