Does anyone else remember these things?
When I first went vegan back in 2016, these wonderful pockets of joy seemed to be everywhere!
Unfortunately now, they no longer exist.
Admittedly, when I was a kid, I didn’t eat a lot of the ‘regular’ pizza pockets (allergies), but from what I remembered, these were spot on!
Not only were they the right shape (looking at you, Tofurky Pizza Pockets [which are also sadly discontinued]) but they also tasted how I remembered! The marinara sauce, the pepperoni, the mozzarella… even not waiting long enough to bite into one and burning the shit out of your tongue.
Don’t get me wrong, they definitely aren’t five star cuisine or anything, but you don’t want that from a pizza pocket anyway, right? Or at least, I know I don’t. Food doesn’t have to be fancy to be good, y’know? They scratched the nostalgia itch, made a delightful small meal, or a hearty snack and used to be pretty easy to find.
They also used to come 4 pockets per box, so it was a winning product all around!
I’m definitely sad I can no longer buy them, but luckily you might be able to!
A few years after I stopped seeing them, I did some research and apparently, the company had discontinued all of their products in Canada, and then slowly began re-releasing them. I believe the reason at the time was something about operating costs since they had branched into the US market. (Which doesn’t make sense to me, considering Gardein is a Candian company) The thing that really got me annoyed though, is that on the US Gardein website, they have more product variety than the Canadian one!
I understand the US is a big market, but what I don’t understand, is why you would bare-bones the product line in the country you started in/are from? That just doesn’t make sense! If anything, they should’ve released a few products to the US to ease into the waters or whatever.
… Sorry about that mini-rant. I’m clearly not over this senseless betrayal. That’s how much I loved their pizza pockets! I haven’t eaten a non-homemade pizza pocket since 2016. That’s too long!
Anyway, if you’re in the US, you should have no problems finding this product to test, enjoy and hoard for yourself. I’m not sure if it’s available in other countries markets, but you can check using the Product Locator on their website.
Oh, and if anyone from Gardein is reading this: please, please, please bring your pizza pockets back to Canada!
So, have you tried Gardein’s pizza pockets? Have you found a different brand of vegan pizza pockets you love more? Or started eating to fill the pizza pocket shaped hole Gardein left when they disappeared? Let me know in the comments!
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