Rizzuto Foods Inc. no longer lives on pizza crust alone.

The Spokane company, which started out manufacturing only precooked pizza crusts nearly 20 years ago, now produces an array of products for each segment of the pizza industry, says Tony Rizzuto, CEO of Rizzuto Foods.

In addition to partially cooked—or "parbaked"—crusts, the company produces raw dough, pizza kits, and crusts ready to cook with the sauce and cheese already added.

Rizzuto says he's changed the direction of the company over the last six or seven years. Rather than focusing on providing crusts to larger food manufacturers and distributors in what he calls the industrial market, the company has widened its line of products to serve the food-service industry.

Other Rizzuto Foods products include focaccia rolls, bread sticks, and calzone shells.

"We used to manufacture tons of product for people who built it into pizzas and sold them to major retailers. We were supplying a component of their value-added product," Rizzuto says.

In that sense, the Rizzuto Foods brand name had little value, he says, adding, "The company's only value was its assets minus liabilities."

So, he set the company on a course to establish a brand name in the food-service industry.

"We've been able to build a back-of-the-house brand with owners, chefs, kitchen managers, and school food services, as well as distribution representatives," he says. "We were able to build a brand without leveraging ourselves in areas the general public doesn't even know branding is going on."

Because everyone eats, and pizza is a staple food item for many people, Rizzuto Foods has been somewhat insulated from the recession.

"We had a record revenue year in 2008," Rizzuto says. Revenues were off by 5 percent last year, but now are back on pace with 2008's levels, he says.

"Today we're happy with the revenue numbers we're putting together," Rizzuto says.

Rizzuto Foods, which occupies a 40,000-square-foot building at 3420 E. Riverside, has 65 employees, most of whom work on the production line, which runs in two 10-hour shifts five days a week. The company has about five fewer employees than last year, mostly due to increased efficiency in operations, he says.

The plant has the capability to produce 140,000 pizza crusts a day.

It's producing fewer items than in years past, but has increased revenues by adding value to them, Rizzuto says.

"That frees up capacity, which allows us to take our next step," he says, although he declines to disclose what that will be.

Rizzuto Foods always is working on numerous projects to improve or add to its line of products, Rizzuto says.

The company recently put into production an all-natural crust that's a component in a tofu pizza sold by one of its customers, he says.

"Some like that on their pizza; I'm more of a pepperoni guy," Rizzuto says, adding that he eats pizza at least a couple of times a week.

Rizzuto Foods also is manufacturing a growing volume of raw frozen products, such as dough balls, for numerous pizza houses, he says.

"It's a newer product that, when thawed, comes out like they just rolled the dough," Rizzuto says.

That helps restaurants save on labor costs, he says.

"We provide convenience and also consistency," Rizzuto says. "Every lot we manufacture is held until we test it to see that it rises properly. We spend a lot of time on quality control."

Rizzuto Foods is one of few companies that produce pizza crusts in several stages, according to customers' varying needs, he says.

"We have a flexible manufacturing system in place," Rizzuto says. "Although it involves a good deal of automation, we're not tied to it."

In other companies, automation limits flexibility in sizes and styles of a product that a manufacturer can offer, he says.

"We can do numerous sizes, styles, and categories of products off essentially one production line," he says.

Now, Rizzuto Foods has started supplying pizza kits that schools, kids' sports teams, and other nonprofits sell for fundraisers.

"We aligned with a company that wanted to use our product for fundraising," he says.

Rizzuto manufactures and packages kits, each of which includes crusts and all the makings for three 12-inch pizzas or 15 five-inch pizzas.

Kit sales have been particularly successful in this economic time, because the kits substitute for groceries at a comparable price, which makes them easier than nonfood items to sell for fundraisers, Rizzuto says.

"Rather than using disposable income such as for chocolate or wrapping-paper fundraisers, they're using money already earmarked for food," he says.

Rizzuto Foods uses local suppliers and service providers, including Spokane Bakery Supply Inc. and Spokane Packaging, and banks with Washington Trust Bank. The company sells its products all over the U.S., although most of its sales are in the West, he says.

"We're proud of the fact that we use local resources to produce all of these products going far and wide," Rizzuto says. "What we sell locally is a small percentage of what we manufacture."

Rizzuto says there's lots of competition in the dough-making industry.

"We're a small fish," he says. "We compete against national companies all day long."

Geographically speaking, Rizzuto Foods' closest direct competitor is Tasty Bake Inc., of Baker City, Ore., he says.

Sometimes intangibles give Rizzuto Foods the edge over competitors, Rizzuto asserts. For example, he says, "We also sell our knowledge of the industry and pizza as a whole."

Customers often ask company representatives about ovens, cheese, and sauces, he says.

"We're able to guide people to be successful, whether they operate a grocery store deli or a single-unit outlet," Rizzuto says.

Some customers would rather not bring attention to the fact that they buy premade crusts or dough, but some of Rizzuto Foods' larger distributors include Sysco Corp., Food Services of America, and URM Stores Inc., he says.

Most people who eat Rizzuto Foods' products aren't even aware the company exists, Rizzuto says. Its products aren't on grocery store shelves, because the cost of retail marketing likely would require taking on some debt, he says.

"It takes a lot of capital to build name recognition among consumers at large," he says. "We've been able to grow without leveraging the company, and that keeps us out of trouble."

Rizzuto founded the company, originally named T.R. Rizzuto Pizza Crust Inc., in 1991. He followed in the footsteps of his father, Joe, who owned Joe's Pizza Supply Co. here before selling it to now defunct Northwestern Pizza Supply Inc.

A third Rizzuto generation also is involved in the industry. Tony' sons, Nick and Jesse, work at the Rizzuto Foods plant, and his daughter, Breanna, worked there before going off to college.