Seattle Brand Tutta Bella Will Soon Be Selling Pizzas Nationwide | Eater Seattle
"The Neapolitan chain began with a pizzeria in Columbia City in 2004 and expanded quickly, racking up awards (including a big one in 2011 from the trade mag Pizza Today) and even serving Barack Obama when he visited Seattle as president. There are still seven locations throughout the metro area, but the company has increasingly moved into food production: it supplies frozen pizzas and other products to regional Costco stores as well as some QFCs and Fred Meyers (both under the Kroger umbrella). In 2023 it opened a 15,000-square-foot production facility in SoDo with the intention of expanding its retail footprint, and the Puget Sound Business Journal reports that the facility will soon be cranking out enough pizzas to stock 1,200 Kroger grocery stores in 40 states. CEO and founder Joe Fugere told the Journal that right now his business is split evenly between restaurants and retail sales, but "by 2028, he expects that ratio will be around 80% food manufacturing and 20% restaurant." The plan is to mechanize some of the pizza-making process, but Fugere says he’s committed to keeping the dough hand-stretched, which "gives it the artisan look and feel." - Harry Cheadle
