Nation Pizza and Foods success story can be traced back to 1947 when Father and Son Pizzeria opened in Chicago, IL by the Bauer family. Success was immediate and it wasn’t long before Father and Son pizza became a standard among Chicagoans.
Father and Son continued to grow rapidly in the 50’s and 60’s. In 1970 to keep up with demands of the growing business, Nation Enterprises was born and developed a crust technology that allowed Nation to make mass amounts of crust in a short amount of time. Nation Enterprises continued on developing new ways to better their crust ability. In 1975, they patented a raised edge hot press technology that put the crust they produced way ahead of the competition.
In the 1980’s, Nation turned its focus to selling food service pizza components—crust, cheese, fresh sauce, and meats to restaurants and other vendors. When that proved to be a success, the Bauer family decided to change the name to Nation Pizza Products and looked towards the frozen food business. Nation saw an opportunity in producing and selling frozen pizzas so they purchased their first USDA frozen pizza topping plant in Waterman, IL in 1987.
Business continued to grow so Nation Pizza Products moved out of Waterman and purchased a USDA and Bakery plant in Schaumburg, IL. The plant consisted of one state-of-the-art Bakery and one USDA topping line. In 1999, Nation doubled the size of the Schaumburg to an impressive 190,000 sq. ft adding another Bakery and three more USDA topping lines. This allowed Nation the versatility to run multiple products for customers on different lines all at the same time.
In the later 90’s, Nation started expanding their capabilities. In 1999, they introduced a new crispy crust technology that maintained the crispiness of a crust as it was being cooked in the microwave. These new technologies lead to Nation to create the microwave Panini sandwich which was brand new to the food industry. The innovative technology Nation developed allowed the bread to stay crispy in a microwave giving each product that “fresh off the pan” taste.
Nation Pizza Products purchased a new bakery plant in McPherson, Kansas in 2002. As Nation continued to grow and expand their capabilities to include appetizers and sweet items; the plant was retooled to include a topping line and a co-extruded dough capabilities line. In 2014, Nation decided to close the McPherson facility and move its production to Schaumburg.
The name Nation Pizza Products did not seem to express the full depth of what Nation had to offer its customers; in 2012 Nation changed its name and logo to Nation Pizza and Foods “Innovators in Baking and Food Solutions.” This new name expresses Nation’s continued growth throughout the food industry.