The frozen food industry will forever owe a debt to Clarence Birdseye. While his freezing innovations date back to the late 1920s, it wasn’t until after World War II that sales of frozen foods really took off.
Then the American public would have to wait until the early 1960s for the marriage of frozen food technology and pizza to unite on an impactful scale. That’s when Rose and Jim Totino translated their pizza restaurant success into the retail market—success that continues today via the Totino’s pizza brand, now owned by General Mills.