The idea that saved the day: Frosty Pizza à la Roberto

The desire to open his own restaurant had been buzzing around in Robert Germer's head for some time. "I'm like a brewery horse, always running forward and getting things done," he says. In 2020, the time had finally come: the trained media economist retired from the operational business of his advertising agency and founded the "Ristorante alla Pappa" in Cologne's Südstadt district together with his agency partner. The problem: the coronavirus pandemic began, but the rental contracts for the restaurant had already been signed. What now?

"We had to come up with something," says Robert Germer. He used the pasta blast chiller to produce the first frozen pizza. "At first, I had no idea about anything, but I just kept going and learnt how to produce really good frozen pizza," says the 46-year-old. "Flavour is crucial to success, which is why we only use high-quality ingredients and let the dough rise for 48 hours, just like in a good pizzeria." The dough is rolled out by hand, freshly topped, baked in a stone oven and frozen - and the Frosty Pizza is ready.

Marketing is part of the pizza trade

Even during the coronavirus pandemic, the pizzasproved to be extremely popular, both with walk-in customers at the counter as well as local supermarkets. The transparent packaging also contributed to this. "The look tempts you to try it," says Robert Germer. Good marketing is the be-all and end-all for him, especially on social media, where he promotes his product. "We don't want to be an anonymous brand, we want to give pizza a face, with humour and self-irony." The latter is reflected in the name of his pizza start-up, which he founded in 2023: Roberto di Frosty .

The company is growing rapidly and wants to tap into gastronomy professionals as a new customer group. Robert Germer sees his Frosty Pizza as a problem solver for the shortage of skilled workers in the gastronomy sector. "It's very difficult to find good pizza chefs these days," he says. "With our convenience product, you save on labour and production costs and achieve consistently high restaurant quality." The doer from Cologne also has a solution for customers who want to top their Frosty Pizza themselves: the dough is available to buy separately for everyone’s own creations. We can look forward to further ideas à la Roberto, because the brewery horse just keeps going and going and going.