Jeno's Pizza Rolls

by Jeno's

1967 – 1993 GONE FOREVER

Gone as a name, not as a food. The rolls themselves have been sold as Totino's Pizza Rolls since 1993 and are still in every freezer aisle. The Jeno's label hung on for another twenty-five years on Crisp 'N Tasty frozen pizza, which General Mills discontinued in 2018 and confirmed in a reply to grieving customers online.

A frozen snack that a Duluth cookbook author built out of an egg roll, for a canned-chow-mein magnate who already owned the machinery to wrap them. For twenty-six years the box said Jeno's; in 1993 Pillsbury put a different name on it.

🧾 One more thingBeatrice Ojakangas worked through more than fifty filling ideas before pizza won — peanut butter and jelly was among the rejects — and Jeno Paulucci ran the results through egg roll equipment left over from his Chun King operation. Pillsbury bought the brand for $135 million in 1985 and spent eight years easing it onto Totino's packaging.

Filed under: Frozen & Dairy · the ’70s & earlier

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