Italian restaurant Zizzi has partnered with Sainsbury’s to launch its first ever grocery range across 307 supermarkets.
This week, Zizzi has made its debut in the frozen grocery category with a trio of pizzas based on one of the restaurant’s most popular offerings on its menu, the Rustica Pizza.
The exclusive selection includes Piccante Pepperoni, Margherita Classic, and Vegan Jackfruit Pepperoni.
The range takes inspiration from Zizzi’s iconic pizza offering: the Rustica – the original long pizza, hand-stretched in restaurants. The Rustica is a ‘Zizzi Favourite’ hero dish, featuring on the core menu and reimagined throughout the year as seasonal limited editions.
The three pizzas feature premium restaurant quality ingredients to evoke the Zizzi restaurant experience at home. The range uses 100% Italian grain leavened dough, hand stretched to 30cm, topped with Zizzi’s restaurant recipe tomato sauce and then generously hand topped with premium ingredients to maintain the restaurant’s rustic appeal. Each pizza comes complete with a mini chilli or basil oil to drizzle.
The innovative partnership is part of Sainsbury’s Future Brands initiative and marks the start of Zizzi’s plans to make retail an important part of its business. The move was accelerated in response to an increase in demand for in-home occasions because of lockdown in the UK, and after Zizzi customers turned to social media to talk about how they craved their Zizzi Favourites during lockdown.
Harry Heeley, Managing Director at Zizzi, said, “We are delighted that our Rustica pizzas are now available exclusively at Sainsbury’s. This is an important step for us as a business as we grow beyond restaurants, and what better way to start than with a true Zizzi Favourite.
'This iconic Zizzi dish is always a popular choice with our customers, and we are proud that we have been able to bring the best of our menu to retail, while maintaining the same restaurant quality and premium provenance ingredients that our customers know and love. We can’t wait for Zizzi fans to try our first ever at-home range and hear what they think!”
Estom Ltd, with their twenty-year association with Zizzi, was integral to bringing the project to fruition, through its expertise in the pizza category in UK retail and wide network of pizza manufacturing partners.
Zizzi has always had distinctive innovation at its heart, with the Italian restaurant chain leading the way with its first to market trends and NPD, and its commitment to a market-leading plant-based and flexitarian offering
In 2018, Zizzi was the first major restaurant to put Ruby Chocolate on its menu with the Ruby Chocolate Cheesecake. In 2019 it launched an exclusive partnership with jackfruit company Jack & Bry to develop the first ever jackfruit pepperoni pizza to hit major restaurants. The Rustica Jackfruit Italian Hot was voted as the ‘Best Vegan Pizza’ at the PETA Vegan Food Awards 2019. The new frozen vegan Rustica line features the same Jack & Bry jackfruit pepperoni and the same vegan MozzaRisella cheese as in restaurants.
Natasha Metcalf at Sainsbury’s said, “We have seen increasing demand for restaurant-quality food that consumers can enjoy in the comfort of their own home, and with recent events many more consumers are opting for options that gives them flexibility and allows them to recreate restaurant experiences at home. We’re confident Zizzi’s Rustica Pizzas will be a big hit and look forward to welcoming them into stores.”
