Frozen pizza industry stays hot with lobbying

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Frozen pizza is big business.

The average American eats most of his or her meals at home, and many time-pressed consumers want meals that are quick and convenient.

As a result, the frozen pizza industry has really been cooking. Supermarket sales have increased more than 60 percent during the past five years, with 2006 sales topping $3.3 billion, officials from the National Frozen Pizza Institute said.

"The industry has had unprecedented growth," said Mark Jansen, president of the National Frozen Pizza Institute and vice president of product strategy at Schwan's Consumer Brands, in Marshall, Minn. Schwan's produces popular names such as Red Baron, Freschetta and Tony's frozen pizzas. "We've pumped up a lot of our innovation, and we are headed back to a 5 percent growth rate."

The National Frozen Pizza Institute lobbies from McLean for its 20 members, which include the makers of Celeste, DiGiorno and Tombstone pizza, to ensure that the Department of Agriculture doesn't leave them out in the cold.

The USDA is in charge of inspecting frozen pizzas and sets labeling standards to guarantee that the pepperoni pizza you bought actually has pepperoni on it. But sometimes strict regulations can hurt the quality of frozen pizzas, and that's where the National Frozen Pizza Institute steps in.

For example, one former USDA standard specified there should be at least 12 percent cooked meat or 15 percent raw meat on a frozen pizza for it to be called a "meat pizza."

In 1999, the National Frozen Pizza Institute asked the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service to reduce its regulations on meat content, arguing that restaurant pizzas had less stringent regulations.

"They were handcuffed from an economic standpoint and from a nutritional standpoint," said Rick Frank, a senior policy attorney at Olsson, Frank & Weeda P.C., a Washington law firm that represents the pizza group.

The USDA relented and changed its standard in 2003 to let frozen pizza companies sell their pizzas with a minimum meat content of 2 percent cooked or 3 percent raw meat.