Review: Mama Cozzi's Pizza

Prompted by a $5.00 coupon that came in the mail, I visited the newly-opened Aldi Supermarket on Lincoln Highway in Exton, PA.  Aldi is a is a global discount supermarket chain based in Germany, offering a limited selection and deep discounts, mostly on house brands. 

Aldi is big in Europe; a new store opens every week in the U.K.  The discounts are significant, but they come at the cost of convenience.  You have to put in a quarter to release a chained-up shopping cart, they don’t provide shopping bags (or even empty boxes, as Costco does), and they don’t accept credit cards.

Wikipedia says that “Aldi's and Costco spend an extraordinary effort to ensure that their private label products are viewed by consumers as equal to, if not better than, leading name-brand products.” So how did they do on take-and-bake pizza?

Aldi stocks an attractive array of frozen pizzas, in varying sizes and styles.  I had one picked out for a quick dinner when I discovered the larger (16 inch) pies in the refrigerated section. Both the fresh and the frozen carried the “Mama Cozzi’s Pizza Kitchen” brand. The box promised “premium Italian sausage and pepperoni” as well as five “Italian-style” cheeses on this 29 ounce thin-crust pie. I’ve been pleased with the refrigerated take-and-bake at Costco and even from Acme, and the thin crust sealed the deal.

Like most cook-at-home pies, this one was cooked directly on the center rack for 12-14 minutes. I usually go to the high end of cooking time, to minimize the chance for soggy pie. I also give it 2 minutes under the broiler to get browning on the top. Despite its thin crust, it did not become stiff or cracker-like, but it was generally sturdy enough to eat without a knife and fork.

The thin crust was tasty, if a tad generic in quality. It had a pleasing texture with a good chew but I’d have liked it crisper. The ingredients were exceptionally well proportioned. The five cheeses were not distinctive, but they were in harmony with the salty and tangy sauce. Neither was overloaded in a way to overwhelm the thin crust. The meats were in big satisfying chunks. No sausage pellets here, but the pepperoni more resembled the actual stuff than did the sausage. Both were tasty, and again in balance with the pie. The pie also won approval from EPBAC (eats pizza but avoids cheese) and VACK (vegetable-avoiding college kid). The three of us ate the entire pie.

The underside of the crust

Once again, I found that you can get a better pre-fab pie (refrigerated or frozen) at the supermarket than you can from any major chain, or from most local pizza joints. Let’s give the crust a 5, the sauce a 7, the cheese a 5, the meats a 6.  Overall, a “6” rating for a well-balanced pie that costs just six bucks.