How Kraft built a frozen pizza around its dough.

DiGiorno is a Kraft creation. English Wikipedia says the DiGiorno name first appeared in 1991 on a line of pastas and sauces, and that DiGiorno pizzas have been sold in the United States since 1995. In a feature for MEL Magazine published on 20 August 2020, Brian VanHooker wrote that the pizza project began at Kraft in 1994 with Arthur Reingold, who wanted a frozen pizza that could stand comparison with pizzeria pizza, and that he worked on the idea with Frank Cole, a researcher experienced in frozen-dough technology. VanHooker quotes Cole describing the result as a frozen pizza that “baked up fresh” in the home oven.

The distinguishing feature was the crust. Writing for Tasting Table on 4 October 2022, Lauren Rothman, citing CNBC, described DiGiorno’s rising crust as one that rises in the heat of the oven and becomes puffy, and said that its formula uses yeast and other leavening, with vacuum-sealed packaging to keep the pizza fresh. Melissa Lemieux, in a Tasting Table article dated 4 August 2026, likewise wrote that Kraft launched DiGiorno in 1995 with a crust that rises as it bakes, adding dough-protecting changes to the formula and the packaging. A traditional rising crust still sits in today’s range, Lemieux wrote, beside croissant-style, thin, stuffed, hand-tossed and Detroit-style crusts.

The name itself was a decision. VanHooker wrote that Kraft considered selling the new pizzas under its existing Tombstone brand before settling on “DiGiorno”, a name chosen for its Italian sound. He also quotes a New York Times article that compared 1995, in frozen-pizza terms, with 1066 or 1492.

From Kraft to Nestlé, and a Canadian twin.

The brand’s slogan arrived with the product. VanHooker wrote that Kraft found its memorable line in “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno,” and English Wikipedia lists the tagline, punctuated “It’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno.”, as the brand’s own. Lemieux wrote in 2026 that the meaning of the line has shifted over the decades: early on it suggested the pizza could match the delivery chains, while today, she wrote, it is meant to say the pizza is better than delivery.

North of the border the same pizza wore a different name. English Wikipedia, citing a CNBC story of 26 September 2014 on brands with different names outside the United States, says DiGiorno was renamed Delissio in Canada in 1999, and that Kraft had used the Delissio name on other pizza products in the 1980s. English Wikipedia gives the slogan in both countries as “It’s not delivery. It’s DiGiorno/Delissio.”

Ownership changed in 2010. In a press release dated Vevey, 5 January 2010, Nestlé said it had agreed to acquire Kraft Foods’ frozen pizza business in the United States and Canada, including DiGiorno, Tombstone, California Pizza Kitchen, Jack’s and Delissio. The release said the business would become part of Nestlé USA and would sit beside the company’s existing North American frozen brands, among them Stouffer’s, Lean Cuisine, Buitoni and Hot Pockets. Paul Bulcke, then Nestlé’s chief executive, said in the release that the business “greatly enhances Nestlé’s frozen food activities in North America.” English Wikipedia, citing Bloomberg on the same day, says the sale came as Kraft was pursuing the British confectioner Cadbury. Wikipedia says the sale went through in 2010, and Nestlé has owned DiGiorno since then.

The Canadian twin did not last. English Wikipedia, citing Canadian Grocer of 1 February 2023, says Nestlé Canada announced that it would wind down and exit its frozen meals and pizza business, and that Delissio sales in Canada ended in 2023. DiGiorno continues in the United States, where Nestlé presents the brand on its goodnes.com recipe and brand site.

Design and documentation.

Frozen food is sold through a glass door. A shopper usually sees the box, bag or tray before anything else, often from several steps away and through condensation, so the pack has to carry the brand’s name, the food and the mood of the line at once.

Box photography does much of that work. A plated, styled version of the meal tends to fill the front of the pack, with the name set above or across it and a band of colour to separate one variety from the next. Within a single brand, colour often marks the sub-lines, so a shelf of similar shapes can still be read at a glance.

Many frozen brands also lean on characters and words. Mascots, catchphrases and short spoken slogans from television advertising can outlast any one pack design and become the part of the brand people remember.

Each guide in this group sets out who started the brand, who owns it now and where its food is made, using dated sources, and treats the colours shown here as an unofficial interpretation.

A brand defined by what it says it is not.

DiGiorno’s identity rests on a comparison. “It’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno” sets a freezer-aisle pizza against the pizza that arrives at the door, and the brand name closes the sentence. Lemieux’s 2026 reading in Tasting Table — from “as good as delivery” to “better than delivery” — shows how a fixed sentence can carry a changing claim without a word of it being rewritten.

The name does similar work. VanHooker’s account of the choice between Tombstone and DiGiorno describes a decision to give a new technical product an Italian-sounding name of its own, rather than fold it into an existing American frozen-pizza brand. Kraft then kept Tombstone and DiGiorno side by side, and Nestlé bought both names in the same 2010 deal.

The brand has also used its packaging to extend the format. Business Insider, in a story by Hayley Peterson dated 27 June 2014, cited by English Wikipedia, reported DiGiorno’s plan for a “Design A Pizza Kit”: a cheese pizza packed with individually wrapped meats, vegetables, shredded cheese and a seasoning packet, so that buyers could top it themselves.

For a design guide, DiGiorno shows how a slogan built on a comparison, closed by the brand name, can do the work of a mascot or a logo. Compare it with Totino’s, a frozen pizza that grew out of a real Minneapolis restaurant, and Stouffer’s, a Nestlé frozen stablemate. For this guide we use oven red and deep crimson with basil green and crust cream, set with a display serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep DiGiorno’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.