Product Tasting : Dr Oetker's Casa di Mama Pizzas

Dr Oetker's Casa di Mama Pizzas : Quatro Formaggi (picture) & Diavola

Tasting a product for review is an exercise which can get a little complicated. Last Dr Oetker's product I tasted, a fruity mousse, I did not like that at all. I found it too engineered, not spontaneous enough and indeed with 4000 tasters going through the testing lab, the company puts a lot of emphasis on giving the public exactly what they like.

But could I resist pizza, no! Let me explain, I don't like pizzas very much however he makes the best pizzas in the world added to that, I never bought a frozen pizza in my life so this was the opportunity to give it a go. I had to call on my very own and very special testing team to make for my like of likes.

Here they are: The team arrived promptly at 19.00, I had not started yet as I thought that I just had to slide the pizzas (without the cardboard box) in the oven. I was in for a surprise: The pizza which promised to be ‘just as good as any homemade pizza ‘Mama used to make’ has a fresh dough base which needs a hot baking tray for the dough to rise before your eyes.

That small technical detail sorted we moved on to the tasting.

First, team inspects and smells:
Then, team eats Finally, team grades Now for the scientific bit:

• 238 000 tonnes of frozen pizzas were consumed in 2008 throughout the world
• Dr Oetker produces 400 million pizzas a year that's 1.7 million a day
• Each country has its preferences, in Italy the house pizza is a salami pizza, in Germany it is a variant of the salami which is the favorite, in Poland the best buy is a rather heavy pizza with a thick mushroom stuffing instead of the light tomato paste, as for the Brits, Restaurante mozzarella comes up top.
• It is a Norway that the most pizzas are sold.

Our verdict:

Casa di Mama's Diavola with Calabrese salami, 2 cheeses, red onions and hot chillies scored 6.5 out of 10- the base was light and crispy. It was described as better than the other frozen kinds but may be not as good as the good corner shop's.

Quatro Fromaggi scored 7 out of 10, edam, mozzarella, emmental and blue cheese were judged a tasty combo and remember these are connoisseurs of very few words.

Going by the reaction, I would get them again but I had problems to locate a supermarket which stores them, only 1 out of the 3 I visited, carried the brand and not the toppings which were my first choice.