I have been trying to figure a way to share my Pizzas with you all. My thought was to see what it would take to sell Pizza like Blue Apron sells family dinners. Folks move from the East Coast and miss the style of pizza we have here. I wanted to see if I could ship them the dough, sauce, meats and veggies we have here to there. Where ever there might be. It seems simple enough.
I hired a marketing company and a food consultant to determine if it was a feasible concept. I tried to keep it local, but that required a relationship with a grocery distributor. They were not interested. The main thing we found out was that most folks aren't remotely interested in handling raw dough. That and household ovens do not go to a high enough temp to cook a pizza properly. We tinkered around and found a recipe that we can ship and will be easy enough to work out of the packaging and bake in a household oven. It turns out it was all in the yeast. All in all everyone that gets paid agrees with the concept. Those that don't want to buy the idea from me to go forth on their own.
The next thing we found out is that the Krafts and Syscos of the world limit the packaging companies from dealing with anyone that wants to edge in on their territory. So basically we have to invent the package to deliver our pizza. We have not figured out this part yet. Shipping fresh veggies requires hugely expensive government permits. Even on a small scale. The few concepts we have come up with have either failed or do not seem cost effective enough to have a packaging company make our shipping containers. $10 for a package to ship $2.10 worth of ingredients, put a 14" pie at about $22.90. No matter how good it is. Nobody will buy it.
The next stumble was Fedex, UPS, and the US mail cannot guarantee any sort of temperature range during different stages of shipping. If dough and cheese freeze, then it is destroyed or is of diminished quality. Heat also has adverse effects. This can be overcome. But it will never be cheap or easy.
The other thing is I have no Business acumen. I am functionally illiterate and have a miserable understanding of even the simplest of concepts in regards to business. I have good ideas but seem to lack the ability to translate my ideas to those I need to. I get frustrated and then mean. When I yell at folks and try to bully them as I have all my life. Most talented reasonable folks stop returning calls and emails. I am who I am is not good enough. I failed in the bike world just for this very reason.
One way we could overcome some of these difficulties would be if we had a brick and mortar restaurant/facility where could serve to the public and then ship full premade pies to customers. That does 2 things, our reputation could be used for marketing and a unified facility fosters trust from the public somehow. I have no interest in this concept. But I do have a investor willing to take on our shared risk. He is sketchy as fuck and I don't trust him. Nobody does. I would never have to worry about labor problems or trash pickup however... I have found premade pies from other places to suck. Once a pizza is baked it needs to be eaten. I don't operate on memory of how good it tasted in the restaurant and I assume neither do any of you.
Jim
Test pizza #116
I hired a marketing company and a food consultant to determine if it was a feasible concept. I tried to keep it local, but that required a relationship with a grocery distributor. They were not interested. The main thing we found out was that most folks aren't remotely interested in handling raw dough. That and household ovens do not go to a high enough temp to cook a pizza properly. We tinkered around and found a recipe that we can ship and will be easy enough to work out of the packaging and bake in a household oven. It turns out it was all in the yeast. All in all everyone that gets paid agrees with the concept. Those that don't want to buy the idea from me to go forth on their own.
The next thing we found out is that the Krafts and Syscos of the world limit the packaging companies from dealing with anyone that wants to edge in on their territory. So basically we have to invent the package to deliver our pizza. We have not figured out this part yet. Shipping fresh veggies requires hugely expensive government permits. Even on a small scale. The few concepts we have come up with have either failed or do not seem cost effective enough to have a packaging company make our shipping containers. $10 for a package to ship $2.10 worth of ingredients, put a 14" pie at about $22.90. No matter how good it is. Nobody will buy it.
The next stumble was Fedex, UPS, and the US mail cannot guarantee any sort of temperature range during different stages of shipping. If dough and cheese freeze, then it is destroyed or is of diminished quality. Heat also has adverse effects. This can be overcome. But it will never be cheap or easy.
The other thing is I have no Business acumen. I am functionally illiterate and have a miserable understanding of even the simplest of concepts in regards to business. I have good ideas but seem to lack the ability to translate my ideas to those I need to. I get frustrated and then mean. When I yell at folks and try to bully them as I have all my life. Most talented reasonable folks stop returning calls and emails. I am who I am is not good enough. I failed in the bike world just for this very reason.
One way we could overcome some of these difficulties would be if we had a brick and mortar restaurant/facility where could serve to the public and then ship full premade pies to customers. That does 2 things, our reputation could be used for marketing and a unified facility fosters trust from the public somehow. I have no interest in this concept. But I do have a investor willing to take on our shared risk. He is sketchy as fuck and I don't trust him. Nobody does. I would never have to worry about labor problems or trash pickup however... I have found premade pies from other places to suck. Once a pizza is baked it needs to be eaten. I don't operate on memory of how good it tasted in the restaurant and I assume neither do any of you.
Jim
Test pizza #116
