Do Trader Joe's Pizzas Come From Italy?

When it comes to frozen pizza, expectations tend to hover somewhere between edible and just good enough to eat in the dark. But Trader Joe's has always aimed a little higher. Before terms like "wood-fired crust" or "hand-stretched dough" became frozen pizza buzzwords, Trader Joe's had already been importing pies that tasted more like something from a pizzeria than the freezer aisle.

Trader Joe's frozen pizzas have earned a cult following not just for their convenience, but for how surprisingly authentic they taste — crispy edges, chewy crust, and toppings that don't look like they were scooped from a cafeteria tray. Their appeal isn't just anecdotal, either: Daily Meal ranked Trader Joe's frozen pizza lineup on its own merit, highlighting just how seriously the chain takes its pizza.

Of course, it helps that Trader Joe's has always leaned into sourcing the good stuff. Olive Garden gets some of its cheese imported from Italy — but Trader Joe's? They may be doing something even more ambitious. What started as a low-key effort to improve frozen pizza has turned into a decades-long transatlantic operation. And while not every pie comes stamped with a passport, several of them do — made in Italy, baked there, and shipped frozen straight to U.S. freezers.

Trader Joe's didn't just stumble across Italian pizza. They flew there — metaphorically at first, then literally. As revealed in Episode 89 of the "Inside Trader Joe's" podcast, in the early '90s, a woman from Italy reached out to Christian, a Bologna-based pizza maker, convinced that Americans had never tasted real pizza. She asked him to send over a few samples — and he did. Not long after, Trader Joe's came knocking.

That same pizza maker has been working with the brand ever since. His factory — tucked into Italy's Motor Valley, where Ferraris and Parmigiano share zip codes — has been behind some of Trader Joe's longest-running hits. The Pizza Parlanno, for example, features a crust imported directly from Italy. Others, like the Spicy Meat Pizza, are entirely made in Italy, down to the last disk of nduja. The dough rests for a full day before it ever sees a flame. And when it does, it's in a wood-fired oven stoked with timber from the mountains between Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany — a detail Christian makes sure to mention.

These pizzas aren't just inspired by Italy — they're produced there. It's part of Trader Joe's wider model: Low overhead, fewer middlemen, and tight partnerships with makers. So if you're craving a freezer restock, there actually is a way to get Trader Joe's groceries delivered — unofficially, through services like TaskRabbit — you just won't be ordering direct from Bologna.