Banza joins the market for frozen pizza.
He co-founded Banza, a brand of chickpea-based pasta with twice the protein and four times the fiber of regular wheat pasta, five years ago with his brother Scott. Time magazine listed the product as one of the greatest inventions of 2015, along with the hoverboard scooter and Tesla Model X.
With chickpeas serving as the star ingredient, the New York-based company now seeks to reinvent another comfort food. Banza Pizza is making its national debut at Target, Wegmans, Whole Foods Market, and Heinen’s locations. According to the company, the products have a crispy crust with a chewy, doughy center made from chickpeas, olive oil, yeast, and oregano. There are three types of pizza: Margherita, roasted vegetable, and four cheeses. The company also sells plain crusts in a two-pack.
In an interview with Food Business News, Mr. Rudolph stated, “As a company, our goal is to increase consumption of legumes, and we’re always looking for new ways to get them into the American diet because here in the US we only eat a third of the recommended daily value.” We considered foods that might work well together and found that pasta and pizza share a lot of similarities. One of those things is that it’s a food that people actively love and for which they have very strong feelings, but which they may also avoid for various reasons. This presents an intriguing chance to include some legumes in the product and make it more comfortable for consumers to eat their favorite foods while consuming this amazing ingredient.
With more than 13,500 locations, Banza is the pasta brand that is expanding the fastest in the US. The company sells four types of chickpea-based rice substitute, six types of macaroni and cheese, and sixteen different pasta shapes.
“When it comes to product development, we view all foods that are made from wheat, rice, and corn as fair game,” Mr. Rudolph stated. “We’ll probably decide as a company to concentrate on mealtime foods just because it’s a special thing to create foods that bring people together.”
Through consumer research, the company found that people frequently set aside just one night of the week as “pizza night,” and that although 43% of respondents said they enjoy frozen pizza, 25% said they don’t eat it.
Frozen pizza has recently become popular with cauliflower thanks to the entry of Caulipower and Cali’flour Foods into the market, which encouraged other mainstream brands to create lower-carb options using the vegetable. Nielsen data shows that between May and August, sales of frozen pizza that is better for you increased by 26%, while sales of regular frozen pizza increased by 7%.
There are 17 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber in a serving of Banza Pizza, 13 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber in a serving of the top cauliflower crust pizza, and 15 grams of protein and 2 grams of fiber in a serving of the top wheat crust pizza.
Mr. Rudolph stated, “We’re really driven to figure out how to get more beans into people’s lives.” “We’ll keep using that as our beacon of hope as we proceed.”
Banza makes its frozen aisle debut with the release of the pizzas. Unexpected challenges arise when introducing a new product during a pandemic, as numerous companies have found out in the past few months. For instance, in-store sampling is no longer an option.
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Mr. Rudolph stated, “I feel confident that it would yield really positive results if we did have the opportunity to demo it.” “That will undoubtedly be a part of our plan in the future, but at launch, we’re going to need to find other special ways to reach people, whether that’s through social media or our own channels. We will need to work creatively to solve this.