Both Walmart And Costco's Store-Brand Frozen Pizzas Are Rumored To Be From The Same Brand

Walk down the aisle of any grocery chain, and you'll see store-brand or private-label products on the shelves. The packages bear the chain's design and are only available in that store, but they typically are not manufactured by the company itself. Instead, these large chains outsource the actual production of the food, and they're famously secretive about where the products come from. Sometimes that means rivals may rely on the same manufacturer. This is the case with Walmart and Costco, both using Palermo Villa Inc. to produce at least some store-brand frozen pizzas.

With how closely grocery chains guard the secret of who produces their private-label products, it can be difficult to hunt down a manufacturer. Often the best clues come from recalls and similar events, situations where government entities spill the beans. This exact situation is what first clued shoppers to the origin of some Great Value pizzas, when a USDA public health alert indicated that at least two types of Walmart pizzas were manufactured by the Wisconsin-based Palermo's: the Great Value Thin Crust Chicken Bacon Ranch and Stuffed Crust Chicken Bacon Ranch. 

While only these two varieties are confirmed, it does raise the question of whether all of Walmart's frozen pizzas come from the same manufacturer. Are the whole line of Bettergoods frozen pizzas also Palermo's products? It can't be said for sure, but Walmart isn't the only store with a private-label frozen pizza made by this company — Palermo makes at least one Costco Kirkland Signature pizza.

In the warehouse chain's case, two pieces of evidence point to who makes Costco's Kirkland Signature frozen pizzas. First, back in 2012, striking employees from the Palermo Workers Union visited the Costco Headquarters in Washington to encourage the company to join a boycott of Palermo-brand products, which included Kirkland Signature frozen pizzas at the time. In 2023, however, the chain reworked the crust and packaging of its store-brand pizzas, leading to rumors that the manufacturer had changed. According to internal documents, as of 2025, Kirkland Signature Pepperoni Pizzas were still made by Palermo Villa Inc.

It is also important to note that just because the pizzas come from the same manufacturer does not mean that they are identical. While one can't directly compare a Kirkland Signature Pepperoni Pizza to a Great Value Thin Crust Chicken Bacon Ranch, they can compare it to a pepperoni pizza in another line from the same company: Screamin' Sicilian Frozen Pizzas. Palermo makes these pizzas too, and they look slightly different from the Costco offering. Beyond appearance, the differences can be further elucidated with details like the fact that the Screamin' Sicilian Holy Pepperoni pizza is a 22.3-ounce product and the Kirkland Signature Pepperoni Pizza is just 19.05 ounces.

It is interesting to know the different brands of frozen pizza produced by one manufacturer, though Great Value and Kirkland Signature pizzas coming from the same place doesn't mean all that much in the end. They can still be made in different styles and with different ingredients, just like shopping at the same grocery store doesn't mean your dinner will be the same as your neighbor's.