Sam Primucci, president of Pizza Nova, recalls making only one significant compromise during the 42 years he has been growing his chain from a single store in north Toronto to more than 100 locations in southern Ontario, New York, New Jersey, Cuba and Romania.

If the Italian immigrant and his three brothers had had their druthers, the name of the store they jointly founded in 1963 would have been Pizza Nuovo. Instead, recognizing that nuovo - the Italian word for new - was tricky for English-speakers to pronounce, the fraternal quartet came up with a pragmatic compromise.

Their decision produced the moniker that is now repeated countless times every day in the chain's unforgettable jingle: "439-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh-Pizza Nova.”

It's a catchy ditty that people frequently warble back to Primucci whenever he is introduced, he says, with obvious amusement curving his snow-white moustache into a smile.

Brennan O'Connor, Business Edge
Pizza Nova's Sam Primucci, with son Domenic, right, has focused on food quality and service from the beginning.

What Pizza Nova has never compromised on, he says, is the quality and freshness of all its ingredients and the meticulous style of its preparation, all of which make its pizzas nutritional meals rather than junk food.

Tomatoes, pepperoni and all the chain's other ingredients are sourced from around the world to ensure top quality in such a painstaking fashion that, for example, it recently took more than a year of auditioning various types of zucchini before one was deemed worthy.

"Yes we are a chain now," Primucci says, "but we still act like a small mom-and-pop operation. We still finger the dough for every pizza. We don't just stretch it because the taste is better when dough is kneaded."

That refusal to take any sort of profitable shortcut is Pizza Nova's key differentiator and probably the main reason it has survived amid rampant industry corporatization, says Cameron Wood, editor of the trade magazine Canadian Pizza.

"Pizza Nova is one of the true success stories in our industry. They didn't start out as a chain, they started out as a traditional Italian family business focusing on the quality of their pizza and their service. And those are still the things that make them successful today," says Wood. "In the GTA, their pizza is renowned for its excellent quality."

Sales-wise, Pizza Nova’s way of doing things is producing a pretty scrumptious slice of the $4-billion pizza industry in Canada. Although Primucci declines to cite his company’s financials, Wood says the chain’s sales for 2003 (the most recent year tracked by his magazine) topped $56 million.

"That puts Pizza Nova at about the middle point among the top 25 Canadian pizza chains, which is pretty impressive and well deserved," he says.

Such an achievement didn't seem to be in the cards back in 1952, when Primucci was 12 years old and his family emigrated from Italy to settle in Toronto. While Sam and his brothers completed their education, their father - who had been successful back home in farming and the coal industry - worked as an asphalt mixer.

"We had a really hard time at first," Primucci says. "None of us spoke English. And I still remember that whenever the Toronto police would see groups of Italians talking together on College Street, they would make us move along because they were afraid we would cause trouble."

But Primucci says local conditions had improved considerably by the time the next wave of Italian immigrants arrived in the 1960s. "We like to think that we were pioneers who paved the way for them because, by then, there were a lot of people here who spoke Italian (including) doctors, lawyers and other professionals."

His claim is corroborated and amplified by Nick Simone, chief operating officer of the Italian Chamber of Commerce of Toronto, who says that "Sam is admired by not only the Italian community, but the business community for building a family business that is working very, very well."

This year, Simone's organization honoured Primucci with its prestigious annual award for global success. He says: "Sam was chosen from among 200 other nominees because he and his company more than live up to our criteria, which are: Caring about the environment, about innovation, technology and the arts, and being socially responsible in terms of the community."

In fact, Pizza Nova's community and charitable activities are legion and amount to more than $100,000 annually in cash and about $150,000 in free food. Among the recipients are Variety Village, Villa Charities and various children's festivals.

Primucci receives about 10 solicitation letters a day year-round and fulfils most of their requests. Asked about his company's generosity, he says, "We really believe in giving back to the community. Everybody says that, but I don't think everybody does it. We do."

Children are a favourite focus for Pizza Nova, which has been an official supporter of the Canadian National Exhibition and the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair for decades. At both annual events, as well as in schools, chain representatives teach kids how to make pizza from scratch.

But charity definitely begins at home for Primucci, according to employee Mary Lacaria, who says her boss "regards all his employees and franchisees as his family and we feel the same way about him."

Lacaria has been with Pizza Nova since 1984, working her way up to becoming supervisor of the central phone room, where most pizza orders are taken. Meanwhile, as she was studying for a master of social work degree, Primucci was thinking about inaugurating a psychological wellness program that would offer free services to anyone connected with his company. He asked Lacaria to run it and she has been doing so for about two years.

Primucci also tends to his employees' physical well-being and morale by providing Friday spreads of pizzas, salads and other goodies, says one of his two sons - Domenic Primucci, who also worked his way up from the ground floor and is now Pizza Nova's vice'-president of marketing and purchasing.

His brother Michael heads up an offshoot company called Mimi Foods, which, says their proud papa, "imports the best frozen pizza in the world bar none from Italy" for sale to restaurants, supermarkets and other retailers.

Integrating this second generation of Primuccis into the family business, says Simone, is yet another reason why the the chamber honoured Pizza Nova's president - who bought out the shares of his three brothers a few years ago when each of them chose to pursue other business interests.

"Sam is making an excellent transition to the second generation and that's something the community looks very highly upon because in many cases the second generation doesn't get involved in the business or does so and ends up squandering it all," Simone says.

Another way of ensuring that Pizza Nova's reputation for superior quality is maintained, says longtime franchisee Lou Semaan, is the strict standards that are imposed on everyone who sells its pizzas and other menu items.

Like all of his far-flung counterparts, Semaan was required by Primucci to work in every capacity of a Pizza Nova operation - from dish-washing to taking phone calls to making pizzas - before he was allowed to buy the first of the five franchises he has owned in Toronto over the past 25 years.

For everyone involved with Pizza Nova to live up to its official tagline of “Simply the best,” Primucci says, a level of dedication is demanded that involves not only strict adherence to company recipes and policies, but also “total dedication seven days a week” on the part of not only franchisees but also their spouses.

"After all," he says with evident satisfaction, "that's the way our family built Pizza Nova from the beginning."

(Terry Poulton can be reached at poulton@businessedge.ca)