United Kingdom · Packaging

The freezer-aisle pizza that also speaks out loud.

Chicago Town adds NaviLens to the front of its frozen pizza packs so blind and low-vision shoppers can recognise the brand, flavour (Deep Dish Pepperoni, Takeaway, Stuffed Crust), allergens and oven instructions from several metres away — without touching the box or asking staff for help.

Chicago Town Original Deep Dish Pepperoni boxes with a NaviLens code printed on the front for blind and low-vision shoppers.

Dr. Oetker UK: UK's leading frozen pizza brand
×12: Read distance vs. a standard QR code
≈ 2 M: People with sight loss in the UK (RNIB)
Leyland: Dr. Oetker UK operational HQ (Lancashire)

Chicago Town · Dr. Oetker UK

Chicago Town is the UK's most recognisable frozen pizza brand, owned by Dr. Oetker, the German family-owned global food group. Its Original Deep Dish, Takeaway and Stuffed Crust ranges are a fixture in the freezers of Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's, Morrisons and Iceland.

Dr. Oetker has a public commitment to accessibility ("Creating a Taste of Home for everyone") already proven by initiatives like the Turkish accessible-recipes project for blind and hard-of-hearing consumers (2022). Chicago Town extends the same principle into UK FMCG with NaviLens on frozen pizza packs, in line with the rest of the British shelf that already carries the code (Aunt Bessie's, Quorn, Müller, Alpen, Weetabix…).

01
The freezer as an opaque box
Frozen pizzas stack as flat boxes behind upright freezer glass. Telling Chicago Town Pepperoni from Cheese — or from a competitor — without sight is almost impossible.
02
Allergens and oven instructions in tiny print
Gluten, dairy, soya and different temperatures and times for Deep Dish, Takeaway and Stuffed Crust live in small print on the side panel, out of reach without a magnifier or help.
03
Protecting the Chicago Town red
The challenge was to add the NaviLens code without altering the signature red and the photographic toppings that dominate the front of the pack and define the brand on shelf.

The NaviLens code is printed on a reserved high-contrast zone on the front of the pack, without touching the Chicago Town red or the product photography. NaviLens and NaviLens GO detect it from several metres — up to 12× further than a standard QR — with no aiming, and read brand (Chicago Town), variant (Original Deep Dish Pepperoni, Takeaway Stuffed Crust, etc.), ingredients, allergens, oven instructions and weight aloud in the user's language.

The gesture is the same shoppers already encounter on other UK FMCG brands using NaviLens — Aunt Bessie's, Quorn, Müller, Alpen, Weetabix, Kellogg's — so the freezer-aisle experience stays consistent across brands.

2022
Dr. Oetker · accessible Taste of Home
Dr. Oetker Türkiye launches "Creating a Taste of Home" for blind and hard-of-hearing consumers — the group's first public precedent in product accessibility.
2022–2023
NaviLens wave in UK FMCG
Kellogg's, Coca-Cola, Aunt Bessie's, Müller, Quorn and Weetabix add NaviLens to packaging in the UK with RNIB, setting the category standard.
2023–2024
Accessible frozen pizza
Chicago Town joins the same accessible-packaging standard with NaviLens across UK freezers, aligning the brand with the rest of Dr. Oetker UK FMCG.
Ongoing
Live data, no reprint
SKU content (allergens, recipes, promos, oven times) is updated in the backend; pack artwork doesn't need to be reprinted to change what is spoken aloud.