This Major Frozen Pizza Brand Is Actually Owned By Nestlé

If you're unfamiliar with the company's vast global scope, Nestlé owns more than a staggering 2,000 brands, far from the company's humble beginnings in 1866 as a condensed milk company. Most of the brands owned by Nestlé are food-related, many of which are extremely popular, such as frozen pizza brand DiGiorno. But DiGiorno didn't begin under the Nestlé empire; it was actually started by another well-known American food giant before being sold to Nestlé. 

While frozen pizzas were moderately common in the 1950s, it wasn't until the 1970s that they were a huge hit in the United States. Other brands like Tombstone Pizza became popular, and Kraft Foods purchased Tombstone in 1986. Almost 10 years later, Kraft Foods introduced the DiGiorno brand in 1995, which differed from competitors with a self-rising crust. DiGiorno's innovative crust was the closest frozen pizzas had ever come to a restaurant or pizza shop's consistency compared to most other flat frozen pizzas. Flash forward to 2010, when food giant Nestlé purchased Kraft Foods' pizza brands, including DiGiorno and Tombstone, for $3.7 billion. 

DiGiorno's revolutionary self-rising crust pizza was the brand's first style, prompting the brand's signature catchphrase, "It's not delivery. It's DiGiorno." What separated DiGiorno from other frozen pizza brands at the time was that the dough was allowed to rest for 30 to 90 minutes before being assembled and par-baked, then frozen, and that extended resting period allowed the crust to rise naturally. 

Over the years, DiGiorno kept on experimenting with the crust. In 2001 came the cheese-stuffed crust, mimicking the wildly popular pizza trend that was invented by Pizza Hut in 1995, followed by a thin-crust-style offering in 2004. Years later, after the 2010 acquisition, DiGiorno introduced a hand-tossed-style crust in 2013. Later came the crispy pan pizza, also known as Detroit-style; then in 2020, DiGiorno debuted a questionable and lackluster croissant crust pizza. Thankfully, in 2025, the brand launched a wood-fired-style pizza crust, which our Tasting Table taste-tester said might have you skipping the pizza restaurant for a night in. Keeping up with the times, DiGiorno also offers gluten-free crusted pizzas.

Sticking to Kraft's Midwestern roots, DiGiorno's pizzas are baked in Wisconsin and Chicago. The tomatoes for the sauce are grown in California, and the mozzarella cheese is from the United States. If you're curious to try the brand's pizza offerings but not sure where to start, peruse our list of DiGiorno frozen pizzas ranked by crust style to help you decide which pizza to bring home from the frozen aisle first.