Name: US vs UK Frozen Pizza | Food Wars | Insider Food
Uploaded: 2025-05-23T07:35:34.000Z
Duration: 24 min 20 s
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Who has the better frozen pizza, U.S. or U.K.?

We're digging in to see who has the best value, how it compares to delivery, and some interesting facts you might not know.

Starting now, in the U.S., it is safe to say

DiGiorno is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, frozen pizza brand.

Right here is the Rising Crust Pepperoni version, and it, according to the box, weighs 24.7 ounces or 702 grams.

One of the best-selling pizzas in the U.K. is this one.

It's the Goodfellas Classic Crust Pepperoni.

According to the packaging, this one weighs 524 grams, although when I measured it uncooked, it actually came to 532.

I want to see how much weight this lost during the cooking process.

After cooking, that's actually only 460 grams.

Get a good look, U.K., can we zoom in there?

This pizza is advertised as being similar to delivery.

Every American knows exactly that slogan.

It's a major selling point that the dough of this pizza is supposed to rise and give the texture and appearance of a freshly delivered pizza.

Now, before we started cooking this pizza,

I measured its weight, and it is actually 745 grams frozen, more than advertised in the box.

I have adjusted the scale for the weight of the pizza pan.

And once it's cooked, looks like it weighs closer to 690 grams.

I want to say the box said originally 702, so that loses 12 grams only.

For this one, there was actually no change in the size of the crust when it was cooked.

We do have quite a few brands in the U.K.

that use takeaway on the packaging, takeaway being what we would call a delivery in the U.K.

That said, I don't think many would use the takeaway aspect as their kind of main selling point.

I think most Brits would just get that takeaway and home-cooked pizzas are likely to be different.

When it comes to frozen pizza in the U.K.,

On the one hand, you have these thin and crispy or stone-baked pizzas.

Typically, the thin crust ones will be smaller and maybe a little bit less complicated when it comes to the toppings.

On the other hand, we have these thicker crust, kind of more American-style pizzas.

The crust can be pan or stuffed, and typically you're expecting a few more toppings and maybe a larger focus on the meat.

If I wanted a heftier pizza, which I often do,

I think I would go for one of these kind of loaded, stuffed crust pizzas, like a Chicago Town stuffed crust pepperoni.

On the packaging of this pizza, it says it weighs 645 grams.

When I weighed it before cooking, it was actually slightly more, around 670.

However, now that it's cooked, it's actually only weighing 562 grams.

That's still smaller than that pizza in the U.S.

These are unironically one of my favorite foods.

The only issue is it doesn't really work very well because they're supposed to roll, and this one kind of just doesn't.

Part of why I love these ones is the stuffed crust isn't cheese, it's actually sauce.

People might say, hey, the crusts are dry.

I think this is just the goat of frozen pizzas.

I've never seen a crust stuffed with anything other than cheese, so for real, that looks nasty.

As you'd expect from a company that claims to be from Chicago, they also sell deep dish pizza.

As you can see, these are small pizzas, and you get two in a box.

Each one of these weighs around 157 grams for a total of 314.

Again, before cooking, they actually came to slightly above the expected weight.

These remind me of birthday parties that I attended while I was growing up.

You can fit a bunch of them in the oven at once.

I'm stressed out parents running around dishing out Chicago town deep dishes.

I've never been to Chicago, but as far as I can tell, these are pretty authentic deep dish, right, Joe?

And if anyone was wondering, that's not a Chicago or even a US brand.

I'm always blown away by the bread ratio on these, because I know typically with a Chicago deep dish, it's more like a pie crust that you then fill with stuff, whereas these are like solid bread, sauce, cheese toppings.

Dr. Oetker with their Ristorante line of frozen pizzas,

I would say are like a direct competitor in the UK to Chicago town.

Owning both brands and playing them off against each other, seems very Yojimbo.

Also, for both of us right now, let's look at the pizza image on the packaging versus the final product.

I have to say, this looks like a pretty good pizza, especially for frozen.

I think they're playing up the thickness on this, but all right.

So it's not like exact, but I don't think I wouldn't be like so shocked.

That's kind of on me, but broadly speaking, I would say a fairly faithful recreation.

I mean, this might be the benchmark pizza.

I think it's a lot fluffier than you would think a frozen pizza would be.

I know other ones do, but for me, this definitely is a good pizza to fill you up on.

The expectation versus reality gap on how food is advertised versus what you get is so common, there's even a subreddit dedicated to showing those differences.

Now, the US tends to be a bit more litigious than the UK, we'll say.

And yes, people have sued corporations like McDonald's and Wendy's over claims of false advertising.

In a recent case, courts did actually side with restaurants on this issue, claiming that no reasonable person could expect a burger to look exactly like an advertisement.

Another big win for our corporate overlords.

Back in 2020, I found this ad for an LA grocery chain that was selling

DiGiorno rising crust pizzas like this one for $4.99.

Today, I'm seeing the same pizza for about $6.50, depending on the store.

Now, is that the worst price increase over the past five years?

I mean, the good family at DiGiorno has to make a living on these things too, right?

Frozen pizza is big business in both countries.