It's not delivery, it's direct sales
A story about pizza night and fears of a frozen pizza bubble
Christina likes to say I’ve never made her the same meal twice. That’s not true, of course, because sometimes we have leftovers. But after ten years of cooking for our household, I’ll take the compliment. Variety is the spice of life, after all. Still, a cook has to have his staples, his go-to weeknight meals, the kind of fare that requires minimal effort, but delivers maximum joy. That’s why the Roman god Bacchus, who went by Dionysus in his formative, Greek years, invented pizza.1
Whenever I’m at the market, I buy a frozen pizza, just to be safe. Remember, when it comes to having frozen pizzas handy, a competent home cook knows that two is one and one is none.
Usually, I buy Daiya’s frozen pizza because I like to eat plant-based, Christina thinks their meat alternatives are surprisingly good for “fake meat,” and compromise is a big part of marriage. But on a recent trip to the market, a stranger asked me to reconsider my pizza purchase.
“Have you tried The Pizza Plant?” the stranger asked.
I’d never heard of that brand, and at first I wasn’t sure if he meant “plant” in the organic sense, or the industrial sense. But I didn’t want to be rude, so I played along.
“I don’t think so. Is it any good?”
“The Pizza Plant is great,” the stranger said. “We’re organic, dairy-free, vegetarian, vegan, plant-based. We grow pizza! That’s our tagline.”
“Great tagline,” I said. “I wish pizza grew on trees. If it did, we’d do something about deforestation.”
“You’re concerned about the environment,” he said.
“Of course. It’s not like Earth is a rental.”
The stranger laughed.
“Well, you don’t have to worry about us,” he said. “Our packaging is one hundred percent recyclable.”
“What about your operation? Is it carbon neutral?”
“Great question! I don’t know the answer, but I can assure you we’re doing everything we can to minimize our impact while building a sustainable business.”
I knew that was a vague promise, one I’d heard from countless advertisements. Still, I was intrigued. On the one hand, this could all be a greenwashing—a shameless attempt by a shady pizza brand to cash in on my values with a clever marketing pitch. On the other hand, what did I really know about the other frozen pizza brands and their carbon footprints? Maybe there was no such thing as an environmentally conscious frozen pizza. If that was the case, I wasn’t so sure I’d want to know the truth. Because while I’m willing to sacrifice to save the planet and humanity, I’m not willing to give up on pizza night. Better to live in ignorance, I thought. And while living in ignorance, I might as well enjoy a pizza that comes with a side of smug superiority. But was The Pizza Plant pie tasty? That was the only real question.
“And you’re saying your pizza is better than Daiya?” I asked.
“Yes! Way better.”
“Do you have any samples?”
“We’re not doing samples because of COVID.”
“Hey, I’m not doing a lot of things because of COVID.”
“But today is your lucky day, my friend.”
Suddenly, we were friends, which gave me a warm feeling standing there in the frozen food section.
“We have a BOGO,” the stranger said.
“BOGO?”
“Buy one, get one free. BOGO!”
“Oh, BOGO is lingo.”
“That’s right, BOGO is lingo. We’re the same price as Daiya, but because of the BOGO, it’s actually half-off. You can’t lose!”
He had me at half-off, which is to say, he had me at BOGO, even though I wasn’t hip to the lingo. The only thing I love more than pizza and performative environmentalism is a deal.
“Why don’t you give it a try?”
Without waiting for an answer, the stranger walked to the freezer case, grabbed two of the The Pizza Plant pies, and handed them to me.
“They’ll apply the discount at the checkout. That’s two pizzas for the price of one.”
“Cool, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Let me know how you like the pizza.”
“Do you work for The Pizza Plant? Or, do you have one of those jobs where you pitch different products? It’s OK if it’s the latter. I won’t be upset if I see you hawking Daiya the next time I’m here, especially if there’s a BOGO.”
“I work for The Pizza Plant,” he said. “I’m the marketing director.”
Marketing director!? Holy shit. I wasn’t exactly talking to Mr. Large Pizza, but I wasn’t dealing with Small Slice either. Right then and there, I decided I needed to level-up my small talk.
“I’ll be curious to see how your brand stacks up against Daiya,” I said. “They’re the brand to beat in our household.”
“They’re good, we’re better.”
I had to admire the stranger’s confidence. Actually, since he worked in the consumer packaged goods industry, part of me wondered if the stranger might get into the business of bottling and distributing his own personal brand of confidence. I’d buy it, assuming there was a BOGO.
“We’ve tried a lot of different pizzas in the past year,” I said. “Daiya is our favorite, but there’s a lot of good stuff happening in the frozen pizza section these days.”
The stranger nodded enthusiastically as if I had said the magic words.
“Pizza is the most exciting thing in the food space,” he said.
“Really?”
“Oh yes. There’s tons of venture capital pouring into the space.”
“For frozen pizza?”
“Pizza is a big deal.”
“Sure, but it’s pizza… not exactly reinventing the wheel.”
“You’d be surprised. The smart money is chasing the top pizza innovators. The best brains in the world are working on frozen pizza solutions, from gluten-free, to vegan, to alternative meats and cheeses! And don’t forget what’s going on with cauliflower. The humble cauliflower plant is having a real moment.”
For a time, we talked about cauliflower, how it had “disrupted” rice, and how it was doing the same thing to frozen pizza. Eventually, our chat about new frozen pizza “solutions” and the “smart money” chasing frozen pizza riches died down. We said our goodbyes, and I went to the checkout line. But our conversation lived rent-free in my head for weeks. Here are some of the questions that kept gnawing at me.
With all this venture capital flying around, are we in a pizza bubble?
If it is a bubble, are we early in the bubble, and if so, how do I get in on the pizza bubble, make a fortune, then get out in time to preserve my fortune?
What if the pizza bubble turns out to be bigger than all the other bubbles I keep hearing about?
Will I wake up one morning and see the talking heads on CNBC yammering away about how the pizza bubble crashed the economy, leaving everyone, except members of Congress and Goldman Sachs, too broke to afford the pizzas sitting in their freezers?
Will Adam McKay make a movie that explains the pizza bubble?
Will half of Twitter argue with the other half of Twitter about whether or not Adam McKay’s pizza bubble movie is actually funny?
Decades after we recover from the pizza bubble, will there be an environmental reckoning for frozen pizza, either because frozen pizza turned out to have a huge carbon footprint, or because the pizza bubble brain drain distracted us from solving real problems, or both?
If he’s still alive when that reckoning comes, will Al Gore turn on pizza and make a documentary called The Inconvenient Truth… About Pizza?
Will the kids of the future congregate in Metaverse movie theaters to watch Al Gore’s pizza documentary, then turn their digital pitchforks on people like me?
Will those kids accept my BOGO explanation, or will they shout “OK, Xer,” before murdering my pizza-loving ass and bringing the head of Michael Estrin to a carbon-neutral NFT-minting platform?
For a time, an irrational fear of bubbles and the reckonings they bring kept me from opening our freezer. But one cold, rainy weeknight, I realized that our fridge was running on empty.
“What’s for dinner?” Christina asked.
I checked the pantry to see if I could improvise a quick pasta, or maybe make one of those rice bowls that are so fashionable these days. But the pickings were slim, so I went to the freezer.
“It’s pizza night,” I said.
“Pizza night! Giddy-up, cowboy.”
“Why does this pizza look different?” Christina asked as we sat down to eat.
“It’s a new brand,” I said. “This random dude, actually he wasn’t a random dude, he was the director of marketing for this frozen pizza company, chatted me up at the market.”
“The director of marketing was just hanging out at the market?”
“They’re small. A startup, I think. There’s a lot of venture capital in the frozen pizza space.”
“Weird.”
I decided to keep my fears about the frozen pizza bubble and any potential reckoning to myself. Why spoil pizza night?
“Anyway, he convinced me to give this brand a chance.”
“How did he convince you?”
“How?”
“Yeah. Did he have samples?”
“No, COVID.”
“So he just talked a good game?”
“Well… yes. And also, there was a BOGO.”
“Buy one, get one free.”
“You know about BOGO?”
“I know all the lingo, honey.”
“Oh.”
“Also, you can’t resist a deal. I know you better than you know yourself, honey.”
Christina took a bite of her pizza.
“Well… how is it?”
Christina chewed, swallowed, then took another bite. This time, she made a sour face.
“You don’t like it?” I asked.
“Honestly?”
“Yes, honestly. The marketing direct seemed sincere about feedback.”
“The bad news is it sucks,” Christina said.
“What’s the good news?”
“This one was free.”
And if you’ve got a second to spare, please hit that ❤️ button👇
Some scholars from the Chicago School credit the invention of pizza to Ceres, another Roman god who was in charge of plants and food. But those scholars are idiots, and what they call “pizza” is really a “deep-dish” monstrosity that should be filed under casserole.
I only discovered Situation Normal a couple of weeks ago, Michael. I still have 70 articles to read to catch up. Math is not one of my strengths, but I figure if I read 5 a day, I should be up to date in a couple of weeks. But with lines like “I wish pizza grew on trees. If it did, we’d do something about deforestation.” and "The earth is not a rental", it will be pure delight. I gave away my TV set seven months ago and canceled my newspaper. I have not regretted it even for one second. Not when there are Michael Estrins in the world to make me laugh ( and think) every morning over my toast and coffee. Thank you. Sharron at Leaves.
You didn't know what bogo meant?!?!