By Charlie Pogacar
Todd DeGroat was hard to miss.
Standing 6’5”, the owner and operator of Popp’s Trophies in Walden, New York, showed up at the International Pizza Expo covered in pizza peel magnets. His garb attracted many questions, all of which DeGroat was happy to answer. Yes, he made the pizza peel magnets. He did so with the aid of a laser engraver. Yes, he does sell them, and, yes, you can have his business card, which is, fittingly, a pizza peel magnet.
The most common reaction to DeGroat’s pizza peel magnets, though, was awe. “These are awesome,” people told DeGroat over and over—reactions which he captured on his Ray-Ban Meta Glasses.
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PMQ Pizza had more questions for DeGroat. How did the owner of a trophy shop in a small village in Upstate New York get involved with the pizza industry? There’s a backstory there.
Trophy Maker
DeGroat grew up in Walden with high hopes of becoming a Major League Baseball player. He spent two seasons at NCAA Division 3 powerhouse SUNY-Cortland before realizing his baseball dreams were slowly fading away. So he dropped out of college, moved home and entered the workforce. He spent time working in landscaping before he heard a rumor: The local trophy shop was for sale. It had been in business for about 25 years, but the owners were looking to retire. One thing led to another, and DeGroat eventually acquired the shop for a modest price.
DeGroat received very little formal training prior to taking over the shop. Most of the work he was doing was the definition of “learning on the job”—he engraved trophies, plaques and other memorabilia for locals, honing his craft in the process. DeGroat grew the business by learning some new tricks, too. He began offering wood and glass engravings. Eventually, he taught himself full-color sublimation, a complex process that allowed him to print vivid color images onto different surfaces.
Close family friends of DeGroat own Franco’s Pizzeria and Italian Restaurant, the local pizza shop in Walden. Each holiday season, DeGroat would create Christmas ornaments for local businesses, including Franco’s. In 2023, he took a photo of a generic pizza and printed it onto a Christmas ornament shaped like a pizza peel. “It turned out phenomenal,” DeGroat recalled. “I started to wonder, if I put a real picture of one of their pizzas on there, would it turn out the same way? So I tested it out, and it came out stunning.”
The owners of Franco’s agreed: The ornaments were a hit. The positive reaction got the wheels spinning further in DeGroat’s head: Would other pizza shops want this? He decided to test it out, starting with DeLucia’s Brick Oven Pizza in New Jersey, which famously received a 9.4 from Dave Portnoy in a One Bite Review. He went to DeLucia’s Instagram account, pulled a picture of one of the pizzeria’s pies, printed it onto a magnet and sent it to Christian DeLucia, owner and operator of the famous shop.
“He messaged me on Instagram,” DeGroat said. “He’s like, ‘These are awesome. We’ll take 100.’”
Onto Something Unique
Convinced he was onto something unique—something many pizzeria operators would want—DeGroat decided to stick to the DeLucia’s formula. Using Portnoy’s highest-rated pizzerias as a starting point, he selected about 40 more shops to send samples to. The hardest part, he said, was finding the right photograph. For best results, he sought out shots of a pizza taken from directly overhead.
“Once I found the photos I needed, I designed them, mailed them out and the orders just started rolling in,” DeGroat said. “Luigi’s in Brooklyn called me. Sally’s [Apizza] in New Haven called me. Modern Apizza—a lot of the legendary spots hit me up. It was right around Christmas time, and it just started taking off.”
DeGroat tripled down. He designed his website to allow pizzerias to upload their own photos of their pies and gave them the ability to order free samples. He began running ads on social media to spread the word, and even sought out a lawyer to trademark the intellectual property (his pizza peel magnets are currently patent-pending).
“I wanted to protect myself in case somebody tried knocking off the product,” DeGroat said. “But I feel like even if someone does try to do that, as the first person to market—and all the work I’ve done establishing relationships with these pizzerias—I’m not too worried about it.”
The magnets start at $6 per unit, but are also offered via bulk pricing. Pizzerias can get them for as little as $2.50—DeGroat said the average order is about 200 magnets, which costs about $650. Some pizzerias sell the magnets out of their shops, while others give them away to loyal customers. Popp’s also has a program where it partners with pizzerias to raise money for good causes—a win-win.
A Pizza Education
It’s been about 18 months since DeGroat made his first pizza peel ornament for Franco’s. In that time, DeGroat has received a crash course in the world of pizza. He’s become adept at identifying different pizza styles, for example, and the day-to-day grind that goes into running a pizza shop.
“There are shops popping up all over the place, all the time,” DeGroat said. “I’m learning a lot about the ins and outs of the pizza world, which is something I didn’t think too much about before doing this. It’s so much more complex than I ever would’ve imagined, and one thing I’ve really enjoyed is that it just feels like everyone in this community is trying to help each other. Which is kind of crazy considering how much competition there is in the pizza industry.”
DeGroat’s trip to Pizza Expo was a leap of faith. He didn’t have enough money to become an official vendor, so he had to run his shrewd guerrilla marketing tactics by the show’s organizers prior to showing up. He wasn’t sure it would be worth his time or how he’d be received. Instead, he was amazed by all of the positive feedback. Some attendees had already heard of Popp’s via social media ads. Others hadn’t and wanted to know more.
The whole experience left DeGroat even more bullish on his product and convinced that he’d found the right industry. Recently, he made another leap of faith with his partner, Tina, when they moved to South Carolina in late 2024. He hired a full-time employee to handle the local business at Popp’s brick-and-mortar store in Upstate New York, which has allowed DeGroat to pour his time and energy into growing his products within the pizza community. It’s an industry that has welcomed him with open arms—and one that he sees a ton of white space in.
“I was doing the numbers the other day,” DeGroat said. “I’ve done business with maybe 50 pizzerias so far. It’s been a lot of big names, but if there are 75,000 pizzerias in this country, including chains, that’s like 0.003% of them or something crazy. So many people haven’t heard of us yet—I’m still in the awareness phase—so I’m spending all of my time and energy growing this.”
