Major supermarket chains like Kroger and warehouse stores like Costco occasionally sign distribution agreements with local businesses when they recognize a high-quality product.
Costco in December 2004 launched co-branded beers with Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery to make Kirkland Signature Helles-Style Lager and Kirkland Signature Vintage Ale for the warehouse store to sell. The agreement ended in summer 2026, with production halting in July 2026.
In some cases, the wholesale agreements are so successful, a local producer will need to shut down certain of its business entities in order to expand its wholesale production.
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Tutta Bella closes pizza restaurants
Neapolitan-style pizza dining chain Tutta Bella, which supplies pizzas to Costco and Kroger stores, revealed in an Instagram post that it will close its original restaurant in Columbia City, Wash., and a downtown Seattle location on Oct. 2, 2026.
The two restaurant closings come after the pizza chain, which was established in 2004, closed two kiosk locations inside QFC stores in Kirkland and University Village in Seattle.
The chain will continue operating restaurants in Bellevue, Issaquah, and Wallingford, Wash.
“Columbia City has been part of our story since 2004, and Downtown Seattle has become a beloved and convivial gathering spot for its neighbors during the time it’s been open. We considered many options before deciding it was time to say goodbye to them,” Tutta Bella said on its Instagram page.
Chain expands its wholesale production
Tutta Bella did not state a specific reason for closing the two locations, but the Puget Sound Business Journal reported that the chain is closing them to focus on its wholesale pizza production for Kroger.
Tutta Bella’s began providing pizzas to 63 Costco stores in the Pacific Northwest, after the pizza chain reached an agreement with Costco in 2021, according to MyNorthwest.
The pizza chain also sells its pizzas, pastas and salads at hundreds of Kroger supermarkets after the company completed an agreement with the grocery chain in March 2025.
Company supplies 1,200 Kroger stores
Under the agreement, Tutta Bella supplies pizzas to 1,200 Kroger stores across 40 states, according to MyNorthwest. The pizza restaurant began providing pizzas to 200 Kroger stores at the beginning of the deal and ramped it up to 900 stores on its way to 1,200.
Tutta Bella in June 2025 filled a launch order for 85,000 pizzas for its national rollout Kroger’s 1,200 stores.
“The Tutta Bella pizza found in Kroger stores is just like the pizza you’d get from a pizzeria in Naples, and now it’s something people can simply enjoy on a Wednesday night after work,” founder Joe Fugere said in a statement at the time, according to 425 Business.
“We didn’t set out to become a national food manufacturer – it happened organically, one pizza at a time,” Fugere said.
Opens production and distribution plant
Tutta Bella opened a 15,000 square foot plant in Seattle in 2023 to support production and distribution of its products in the Seattle area. The company in 2024 hired staff to expand its packaged retail products regionally and beyond the Pacific Northwest.
Tutta Bella was created by Fugere in Columbia City after he quit his job and flew to Naples, Italy, where he didn’t know anyone and no one seemed to speak English, according to the company website.
Fugere got a job as a busboy in a Naples pizzeria and worked sunrise to sunset, six days a week learning the pizzeria trade and fell in love with the wood-fired pizza craft.
After mastering the wood-fired pizzeria craft, Fugere returned to Seattle, obtained everything he needed to recreate his Naples experience, and opened his first Tutta Bella restaurant in 2004.
Fugere made every pizza himself, and his friends volunteered as hosts and servers in the beginning, and the restaurant became a success, according to the website.
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