The pizza diplomats - selling pizza in Russia

Nation's Business, Sept, 1988 by Karen Rosenberg Caccavo

The Pizza Diplomats Though the hammer and sickle won't be flying next to the American and Italian flags in front of Roma Food Enterprises in Piscataway, N.J., that doesn't mean the company lacks high hopes for its historic joint venture with the Soviet Union. On the contrary, Roma's founder and president, Louis Piancone, is proud to be the first to take American pizza to Moscow.

In March, Roma sent to Moscow a self-contained mobile pizza parlor that represented an investment of about $350,000. The 36-foot-long, 15-ton unit has computerized pizza-making equipment and a freezer stocked with ingredients for 19,000 pizzas. It was operated by five American technicians.

Since April, the unit has been parked for weeks at a time in various Moscow neighborhoods, making and selling pizza six days a week. In the locations where sales justify it, the mobile pizza parlor will eventually be replaced by traditional pizza restaurants. As Russians have been trained to operate the unit, they have replaced the Americans.

The venture was conceived by Shelly Zeiger, 52, a Trenton, N.J., importer and exporter. In July, 1987, he invited the mayor of Moscow's Lenin District the part of the city that encompasses the Kremlin and other major buildings) to Trenton in an exchange program between the two cities. While in Trenton, the mayor and his delegation were treated to their first American pizza--Roma Food's Astro Pizza. "Of course, they loved it," said Zeiger. "And they thought the people of Moscow would love it, too." Piancone and Zeiger formed a partnership and went to Moscow last October to negotiate the joint venture, which is owned 51 percent by the Soviets and 49 percent by the Americans.

So far, more than 200,000 Muscovites have eaten Astro Pizza. The mobile unit's sales at every location it has parked in Moscow have been large enough to justify a permanent restaurant. The first, to open soon near the Kremlin, will have a "very American facade," Zeiger says, and will sell pizza and other American foods. Roma expects eventually to open 25 restaurants in Moscow, and more in other Soviet cities. American fast-food chains such as McDonald's and Pizza Hut will soon open outlets in Moscow, but Zeiger says the market is so underserved that "there's enough for everybody."

The venture is the newest direction for Roma Foods, the company that Piancone founded 33 years ago as an Italian delicatessen near Asbury Park, N.J. Piancone, 59, grew up on a farm in Corato, Italy, and came to the United States while in his 20s. His first job was behind a delicatessen counter; then he drove a dairy truck. When he spotted an empty store along his dairy route, he decided to go out on his own.

Piancone does not disclose sales figures for his privately held firm; he describes it as a national food-service company distributing supplies (everything from mozzarella cheese to ovens) to pizza parlors. Roma has 300 employees from New Jersey to Nevada.

Piancone for years has been intrigued by "high-tech" pizza. "My idea is to cook an old-fashioned pizza, with all the charm, beauty and taste of yesterday, in 4-1/2 minutes," he says. It is this product, Astro Pizza, that Piancone and Zeiger are exporting to the Soviet Union.

For this experience, Russians are paying 7-1/2 rubles (about $15) for a 16-inch pie, and the equivalent of about $1.85 for a slice. Twenty toppings--from traditional tomato and cheese to caviar--are available.

Another Astro Pizza mobile unit is going to China; it is scheduled to open in Beijing in October. "Next," says Piancone with a smile, "I'd like to bring Astro to Japan, Spain and eventually Italy." American pizza in Italy? "I go there often," says Piancone of his native country. "I am positive that American pizza is better than Italian pizza. I tell them I'll be there. And I will".