After immigrating to theUnited States in the 1950s,Sicilians Gaspare and Zina Fallucca followed family members to Milwaukee, where they settled down andstarted their own brood by having three sons, Peter, Giacomo and Angelo. In1964 the Falluccas opened Palermo Villa, a small Italian bakery on Murray Avenue, justnorth of North Avenueon the East Side, and became renowned forbaking delicious Italian breads, cookies and cannoli. When the hardware storenext door became available, the family expanded their bakery. In 1969, theFalluccas opened a restaurant that served authentic Italian specialties fromold family recipes, such as calzonebut it was their pizza that that garneredthe most praise.
A local grocery storeownersome say it was Max Kohl who opened Milwaukee’s first modern-stylesupermarket with the novel concept of an in-store bakery and deli; others sayit was Tom Balistreri, a Sicilian who opened Sendik’s on the EastSideconvinced Gaspare, or Jack as he was known, to make pizzas for him tofreeze and then sell at his grocery store. With one foot in the frozen pizzabusiness on a small retail scale, Fallucca sold the family restaurant anddevoted himself full time to the venture.
In 1978 the Falluccastransformed an old bakery on the South Side into a manufacturing facility tomake Palermo’sfrozen pizza breads. From that point on, the local company developed and grew,piece by piece. Palermo’sbegan producing 12-inch round pizzas made with crusts that were par-baked, andthen came thin crust pizzas and fresh deli pizzas. In 1989, the companyintroduced the industry’s first pizzeria-style frozen pizza made with a crustthat rises as it bakes.
In 1991, when Palermo’s had about 30employees and sold its frozen pizzas in grocery stores throughout the state,the Falluccas gave their sons Giacomo and Angelo control of the familybusiness. The second generation, which now includes Giacomo’s wife, Laurie(vice president of marketing), and brother Peter (who works in facilitiesmanagement and employee services) catapulted the Palermo’s brand into thenational frozen pizza market by entering the private label business, producingunique, custom-made frozen pizzas for grocery stores to sell under their ownbrand names.
Without the overflowingcoffers of their corporate rivals, Palermo’sPizza had to establish its own niche in the frozen pizza business by makinghigh-quality pizzas with great ingredients.
“Just look at theingredient statements on the products,” says Chris Dresselhuys, Palermo’smarketing director. “None of our meat toppings have any artificialfillers in them, and we use 100% real cheese. Being a brand that was born in apizzeria, our owners have very strong beliefs on how pizza should taste, andthe level of quality it should be made to, and it’s just not something we’rewilling to compromise.”
This year Health magazine named Palermo’sPrimo ThinGarden pizza “America’s Healthiest Frozen Pizza,” and in theJuly/August issue of Fitnessmagazine, Palermo’s Primo Thin Margherita pizzawas awarded “America’sBest Frozen Pizza.” Palermo’spizzas have also been featured in Men’sHealth magazine, in the book EatThis, Not That, and on the Food Network’s “Unwrapped.” Within its beautiful135,000-square-foot facility in the Menomonee Valley, Palermo’s Pizza makes sixstyles of frozen pizza (each with two to seven flavor combinations), fromorganic pizzas baked on a slab of marble within an imported Italian oven, torich, sinfully satisfying breakfast pizzas.
Palermo’s Pizza offers one-hour walking toursof Villa Palermo, its state-of-the-art pizza factory with a design inspired bya 16th-century Sicilian villa. For moreinformation, visit www.palermospizza.com.
