Ask The Consultant
By Brandon Farrell | Stones Pizza

In this issue, I am going to stray away from my usual format of discussing (or ranting on) about a particular topic and use this space to answer a number of questions I have been asked lately. A number of these questions pertain to topics and articles I have previously discussed, so you may find some of them to be relevant. I guess you could consider this a bit of an update, but unlike MYOB it won’t cost you hundreds…

The biggest question I have been hearing is: “Now that delivery drivers are easy to come by, are you going to lower your minimum order for delivery?”

No. Although it is fantastic at the moment with the availability of staff, (In November I put an ad on Seek and got 20 responses…5 of which spoke English, and in March I put in another ad and got over 250 responses) it is still not financially viable to go back to a $15 minimum order. I know I charge more for delivery than a lot of you out there, and at $6 or $7 depending on area, it makes no sense for me to lower the minimum. Simply put, the amount received in delivery charges does not cover the wages of the drivers, especially if you add in the cost of super and worker’s comp. So if you have to make up the difference from the food sales, a $15 order would most likely end up delivered as a loss.

Also, now our customers are used to it we able to operate far more efficiently without the huge number of single pizza deliveries we were doing before…with fewer staff.

Even though petrol prices have come back down, and the dollar has stabilized, we are still getting huge increases from our suppliers. What can we do?
We can re-negotiate with our suppliers. On one hand I believe in maintaining a good relationship with your supplier, but sometimes you need to get them on the rails. Put together a list of all the products you use and shop it around. As higher end restaurants are really struggling these days, suppliers will undercut each other for your business. Right now we can even get some of them to commit to those prices in wring for a specific time.

Do not, however, get lower quality ingredients to try to keep your costs in line. If you have to, increase your selling price. Selling a substandard product will lose you the customers you currently have.

I’m looking to start a start a pizzeria. Should I get a woodfired oven or a gas oven?
Someone once said to me “If you want to make pizza, use a woodfire…if you want to make money, get a conveyor”

I agree with half of this statement. While this does ring true with the chain stores pumping out poor product at high volume, there is a general misconception that woodfired pizza equals better quality. Some of the worst pizza I have had has been woodfired, and I have had some great pizza off a conveyor. Quality ingredients is the key to a great pizza. If you put “pizza topping” on in a wood oven you still get crap pizza. Product consistency is the key to good business and conveyor ovens give you the greatest consistency by far. From a business standpoint I wouldn’t go any other way. Woodfired ovens require more skill to operate and the temperature is inconsistent so you have to turn the pizza as it cooks, always keeping an eye on it. With these variables each pizza can be different from the last. Plus you just can’t do the volume with woodfired ovens that you can with other ovens, thus limiting your profit potential. Deck ovens are an option, giving you that cooked on stone characteristic. And they can be stacked to easier cope with volume demands, but again you have consistency issues.

But woodfired seems to attract a higher premium…
This goes back to the perception people have that woodfired pizzas are better quality. There is a romantic idealism that is attached to them as well so people expect to pay more. Customers also expect fewer toppings on a pizza cooked in a fire so you can generally get away with running a lower food cost giving you more profit potential per individual pizza, but again you are limited in your volume.

Can I get a woodfired style pizza with my conveyor oven?
Yes. A thin crust put through on a perforated pan can give you a very similar product. Don’t overload it with toppings.

Is it really worth it to offer gluten free bases?
It seems like a hassle… Offering gluten free bases are a bit of extra work with cross-contamination being the biggest issue. You have to make sure that you have separate pans and separate cutters as well as have all your staff informed and aware of which ingredients contain gluten. If you are cooking pizza directly on stone you cannot cook your gluten free directly on the stone too as it will pick up residual flour, so all gluten free pizzas have to be cooked on designated pans.

The upside is you create a point of difference from your competitors. You will draw customers who normally cannot eat pizza and they in turn will bring their friends. If there’s a group of people with one person who is gluten intolerant they will come to your store over your competition.

I currently sell around 45 gluten free pizzas per week, and most of those go out the door with a couple of regular pizzas with the order, so for me offering gluten free is very worthwhile.

Do I have to buy gluten free bases pre-made or can I make my own?
You can make your own, but they are a bit labour intensive and you will have to spend a fair bit of time working out your recipe and procedure. If you are unfamiliar with gluten free flours, they do not behave like regular flours at all and will take a bit of playing around with to get used to. You can make either a dry mix and press it into the pan or use a batter, precook them and freeze. Again, the single most important thing to watch out for is cross contamination. Gluten free bread mixes are available from the supermarket and are suitable for pizza bases.

Can you recommend any commercial gluten free bases?
There are several gluten free bases available on the market so it is a matter of trying them out and finding one that suits your product. Most of them are ok and one in particular is dreadful. For Stones Pizza (my shop), ok just isn’t good enough so I have developed my own recipe. Maybe I’ll put my own out there one day.

Should I get my boxes printed?
I suppose a printed box would be a regular reminder to those students and share house dwellers that leave pizza boxes lying around for months before they throw them out prior to a rent inspection (we had the twin towers that reached the ceiling from the top of the fridge back in the day). But why spend money on something that is heading for the bin? These people have now had your product so they already know about you. What you want to do is remind them about you in manner that is less obtrusive and longer term than an empty pizza box. The answer to this of course is the fridge magnet. Throw in one of those per order and it will most likely end up right in the direction they are going to look when they are hungry. And at one per order instead of every box, they are cheaper as well. Buy a year’s worth at a time and they work out to be quite cost effective. I myself use plain recycled unbleached boxes.

We are slowing down a lot and are thinking of offering 2 for 1 pizza on Monday and Tuesday nights to get people in the door. Is this a good idea?
This is a bit of a tricky one. I can see some merit offering 2 for 1 on slow nights because it may get a few new customers in the door who become regulars, however I would not do this myself because I firmly believe discounting your product will cheapen customer’s perception of your product’s value.

The first thing you have to look at is your cost percentages….if your food cost is doubled are you going to make any money? Remember; if it does get busier you will have a higher labour cost and you will have to spend money to advertise your deal, which will have to be recouped at a lower or non existent profit margin. Simply putting a sign inside your shop or on your window is not enough…you are then just giving away pizza to people who were coming to you anyway. With a 2 for 1 deal it could potentially COST you money, so you are better off spending more on advertising and perhaps on creating a better product.

If you really want to give stuff away, give them a garlic bread because what attracts people is the word FREE, not necessarily the word that follows it.

I’m looking at buying pre-made bases to cut down on the labour costs. Can you recommend anyone?
Shut your shop and walk away. As I mentioned before, customers left thinking that your product is not as good as it used to be is the kiss of death to any business. You can’t use a pre-made base and have a quality product. The only time I would recommend doing this is when your pizza is so crap that no-one will notice the difference. If you look at the added expense of a pre-made pizza base you are not saving any money and then you have added storage issues as well just to put out a sub-standard product. Unless you are selling pizzas in a petrol station, no way! You have heard me say it before, do not cut costs by buying cheaper product. Now is the time to spend the money to improve your product to make it better than your competition.

Can I recommend anyone? Yeah, McCain’s, and they make the whole pizza for you…NO labour cost! You can offer ham and pineapple, vegetarian or supreme, right in the freezer at Coles.

Are dough rounders and dividers worth the money?
This all depends on the volume you are doing and how your shop is set up. The way my shop is set up the dough prep area is near the phones. As dough prep can be stop-started, one station in my shop is solely for dough production and phone answering. As I need extra people around just to answer the phones anyway, it makes sense to get them on the next day’s dough otherwise they would be left with little else to do during service. My delivery drivers help out in both these areas between deliveries. If the labour in your shop is well organised there should be no need for the added expense of the machinery as good staff can get the dough knocked out pretty quickly.

If you are running a couple of shops then a rounder and divider could be of great benefit if you were to make the dough in one premises and then deliver the dough to your other stores. You really need large volume to make them worthwhile. You also have to consider the space requirements as they do take up a lot of room, and I think for most of us space is at a premium.

What do you think is the single most effective way of marketing a Pizzeria?
If you are going to use just one form of marketing, the most effective is menu distribution. This gives potential customers all they need to be able to call you up with an informed order as they can see exactly what you offer, your delivery policy, trading hours, etc. This also saves time when ordering because they aren’t asking “What pizzas do you have?” followed by “What was that third one again?” Adding a menu online is a good way to deal with this, as you can direct the menu-less to the website.

It is a more costly option with the cost of printing and distribution, but people will be more inclined to hold onto the menu if they think it looks good, so you have to design a menu that stands out. Spend the money on a quality and glossy menu and use different sizing that stands out. A menu that is a folded A4 photocopy looks cheap and nasty, suggesting that your product is as well.

This is far more effective than say a newspaper ad that gets ignored once and then left for recycling, however I do recommend using the local free community newspaper for distribution as the newspaper gets past the “No junk mail” letterboxes.

If you need help starting a new pizzeria, or fine tuning an existing store, contact the International Pizza Consultants

Brandon Farrell
0409 202 196
pizzaconsultant@y7mail.com