VILLA PRIMA® Pizzas Serve Up Big Flavor in Small Formats

Pizza’s popularity makes it a mainstay on theme park menus around the country. However, operational challenges like seasonal staffing, limited kitchen space, and unpredictable demand can lead to serving soggy, cold, or simply unacceptable slices. 

How can attraction operators reliably deliver a crowd-pleasing yet profitable pizza no matter attendance size, budget, and back-of-house (BOH) capacity? CJ Schwan’s has a simple, saucy solution: VILLA PRIMA® Personal Pizzas. 
 

Whether guests crave a quick pepperoni slice that they can grab after riding a roller coaster or wish to warm up at the water park with piping hot classic cheese pizza, CJ Schwan’s VILLA PRIMA® Personal Pizzas deliver the convenience and snackability guests desire without sacrificing the quality, consistency, or taste of a traditional round multi-serve pie. 

Bringing a big difference to menus, one small pizza at a time
Across her 40-year culinary career, CJ Schwan’s Corporate Chef Deb Hey has learned that meeting the expectations of casual pizza lovers and aficionados alike requires a commitment to consistency from the crust to the countertop. She highlights a common problem that both quick-serve food stalls and sit-down parlors face: inconsistent quality between personal pies and full pies. 

“People assume that you can’t get the same level of flavor and quality in a small individual pizza,” Chef Hey says. “They’ve learned to expect, and accept, that ordering a whole pie and personal pizza are two separate experiences.” 

CJ Schwan’s VILLA PRIMA® Personal Pizzas are designed to challenge that expectation. Chef Hey and her team focused on taste and texture to ensure every VILLA PRIMA® Pizza met identical standards regardless of size. 

“Just because it’s a smaller version of our pizza doesn’t mean we shrink our goals,” Chef Hey says. “We believe you’re going to get the perfect pizza whether it’s small, large, scratch-ready, or par-baked.” 
 

VILLA PRIMA® Personal Pizzas are available as 7” and 8” pies in three varieties:

• 7” Par-Baked Four Cheese Pizza (SKU 70260): With a blend of whole milk mozzarella, cheddar, provolone, and Parmesan cheeses, this fully-topped, individually-wrapped pizza requires minimal effort from a food and beverage team without sacrificing the quality ingredients guests expect.
• 7” and 8” Oven Ready Hand-Tossed Style Pizza: Coming in two flavor varieties—four cheese and pepperoni—and featuring the taste and texture of homemade artisan bread, these self-rising crust personal pizzas offer the authentic taste guests crave with freezer-to-table convenience in minutes.
• 8” SCRATCH READY® Pizza: The pre-proofed dough of this partially-topped pizzeria-style pizza delivers the flexibility and freedom to add toppings while helping attraction managers control costs and reduce waste.

“Everybody wants something different; with VILLA PRIMA® Personal Pizzas, everybody gets the wonderful, big flavor experience they want in a smaller package.” 
 

Keeping pizza personal from oven to the arcade
Pizza isn’t just popular; it’s also personal. Guest preferences are as diverse as the toppings themselves, which is why choosing the right pizza purveyor is so important in the amusement parks and the attractions industry. 

“Everyone has a connection to pizza,” says Chef Hey. “It’s a comfort food: People order pizza because they know what experience they want.” 

Preparing the perfect pizza starts with quality ingredients and zero compromises. “We do not put anything into our products that we aren’t proud to serve,” she says. 

Chef Hey’s formula for success doesn’t stop with VILLA PRIMA® Pizza’s ingredients. Crafting the perfect pizza in theory is meaningless without a practical way to customize, heat, and serve it. CJ Schwan’s goal is to help restaurants create a pizzeria-quality pizza program regardless of operational limitations, including BOH space, labor, and budget constraints. 

“A lot of recreational companies have aspirations for a full pizza program that offers an extensive menu and prioritizes speed, yet they don’t fully understand how to operationally achieve it.” 

For example, the more toppings a guest orders, the greater the potential for higher food cost waste. Similarly, a modest kitchen with a single oven may struggle to complete orders on time if they’re having to adjust baking temperatures from item to item. 

“We want to help a restaurant build the right pizza menu not only for their guests, but for their operational capabilities and margins,” Chef Hey says. “That’s why we focused on creating VILLA PRIMA® Pizzas to adapt to virtually any BOH operation. You don’t need special equipment to use our products.” 

Chef Hey believes that CJ Schwan’s is a resource to its clients—just as much as it is a supplier. The CJ Schwan’s team is available both in-person and remotely to assist restaurants from determining which pizza products are ideal for the attraction’s guests to helping owners through quality-control struggles. 

“If a client’s pizza is getting too dark or if their rapid cook oven isn’t achieving a consistent crispness from top to bottom, we’re here to work through those problems side-by-side,” Chef Hey says. 
 

She’s especially excited for CJ Schwan’s new VILLA PRIMA® 7” Par-Baked Four Cheese Pizza. The thicker crust lends it a doughier texture that she says is reminiscent of a scrumptious bread stick with traditional pizza toppings. 

“Whether you have a pizza oven, a rapid cook oven, or even a microwave oven, these personal pizzas still come out with that fresh and vibrant flavor that you want and that customers are asking for.” 

Quality no matter how attractions slice it
All VILLA PRIMA® Pizzas deliver pizzeria-quality taste with minimal prep. Chef Hey notes that many amusement park restaurants find success with a mixed menu of personal pizzas and multi-serve pizzas. VILLA PRIMA® Multi-Serve Pizzas are available in 12" or 16" pies, and coming soon, a 14" pizza. Variety is easily added to a menu with options including the 12” Oven Ready Rising Crust Pepperoni Pizza and the 16” Thin Crust SCRATCH READY® Cheese Pizza.

“You’ll get big taste and big ingredients no matter if you’re heating up a large multi-serve pizza for the family or letting the kids each customize their own smaller personal pizza.

Most VILLA PRIMA® Pizzas can be ordered either as a plain cheese pie or pre-topped with popular ingredients, allowing restaurants at attractions to reliably offer a high-quality pizza that’s served piping hot minutes after it’s ordered.

“Pizza is such an appealing menu option at theme parks,” Chef Hey says. “You can still offer your guests chicken wings and french fries alongside a personalized pizza without putting a strain on your employees, equipment, or budget.”

Both the 7” and 8” VILLA PRIMA® Personal Pizzas offer unexpected restaurant quality in recreation environments. Crowd pleasing and profitable, these items are easily integrated onto any restaurant menu and can be cooked to perfection no matter the size or staffing of a facility’s restaurant.

Contact a CJ Schwan’s representative to learn more about VILLA PRIMA® Personal Pizzas.
 

The article above is sponsored by CJ Schwan’s. The content presented does not imply endorsement by IAAPA, IAAPA.org, IAAPA News Daily, or Funworld magazine. The information contained should not be construed as a formal recommendation for products and services or instructional guidance provided by IAAPA.