A popular pizza from the past makes its final turn around the microwave plate.
Conagra Brands, the conglomerate that owns brands like Slim Jim, Duke’s and Orville Redenbacher’s, is retiring Celeste Pizza. But his kind face and warm, post-microwave cheese will live on in our collective nostalgia.
“We have stopped producing Celeste as part of our SKU rationalization process,” a Conagra representative told TODAY.com. “We mentioned this on our earnings call last week.”
During Conagra Brands’ first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call on September 30, CEO John Brase said, “There are certain brands and categories that we just don’t see a future for, and it just makes sense to get out of those really unprofitable small brands – or low-profit brands – as soon as possible.”
He also called it a “bold decision,” and fans on social media certainly took it that way.
“I lived on this for months when I was broke,” one Reddit user wrote in the subreddit r/PizzaCrimes. “They kept me alive at a difficult time in my life. I haven’t had one in years, but I will still miss them.”
“I love how this submissive cries Celeste, we know when to give credit where credit is due,” another replied. “we know pizza.”
The woman whose signature smiling face bore the brand of nerdy ’70s goodness was Celeste Lizio, born in Sant’Angelo all’Esca, Italy, in 1908 and who grew up in her mother’s cafe learning her recipes.
After Celeste emigrated to the United States with her husband, Anthony Lizio, in the 1930s, they opened a small grocery store, where Celeste cooked in the scullery. The store became known for Celeste’s food rather than its groceries. Due to the popularity of Celeste’s recipes, the couple opened their first restaurant on the West Side of Chicago, where their four children learned from their parents.
In the 1950s, their adult children began selling their family’s homemade products to other restaurants and grocery stores. The wholesale business was so successful that in 1962 the Lizios closed the restaurant to concentrate on this one. In 1969, the Quaker Oats Company acquired the brand, and it became the staple of the freezer aisles we all know today.
In 1987, Celeste’s daughter, Clara, and her husband, Rudy Sr., opened Clara’s Restaurant in Woodridge, Illinois, and Celeste died in 1988.
His legacy may no longer live on in the form of frozen pizza, but his daughter’s restaurant is still up and running in his honor.
Gn bussni
