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Post by slowfood on Apr 28, 2012 16:10:28 GMT
Hi all, My pastimes are being a petrolhead, Campervanning and building Wood Ovens (#3 at the mo) Basically the mobile oven I am building now will more than likely be put up for sale when I am happy it's completed but I also got thinking, How good/bad is the mobile Pizza business, Artisan Bread etc. I work in construction (Shuttering/Reinforcement) But age is catching up and as you all know decent work is harder to find. It's an open question I know but do these businesses we see popping up all over the place make a good living, What's the best way to go about running the business and pretty much everything else or would I be better off concentrating on building the odd bespoke oven and selling it or finally my first idea, Selling Moulds for people to cast thier own ovens??? Any ideas and pointers greatly appreciated. Thank you See my build at www.fornobravo.com/forum/f21/my-l....oday-16182.html and www.fornobravo.com/forum/f43/cast....uild-17613.htmlIf I can help in any way please don't hesitate to contact. Thank you |
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Post by turkey on Apr 29, 2012 19:32:15 GMT
how heavy is the mold, I suspect economies of scale mean as a customer buying a mold and then refractory cement is as expensive as just buying a pre made oven?
your oven looks at least as good as the commercial offerings so I don't see why you could not turn a few bob somehow, it looks good, soon to be fully tried and tested.
I know nothing about business tho.
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Post by tonyb on Apr 30, 2012 9:48:10 GMT
I don't carry out any of the businesses you are thinking about so feel free to disregard any of these comments.
My key suggestion would be to forget about any personal attachment to wfo and try and view each opportunity in a business sense which I think is what you are trying to do with this thread.
With the exception of the artisan bread business idea, which I think is materially different, I don't see why you couldn't set up a portfolio style business doing all the rest. I don't think these are either or businesses at this stage of development.
It probably needs a separate thread to discuss in detail each of the potential businesses you mention ie 'I want to start a (mobile pizza ,modular wfo, wfo mould) business, what do I need to consider.
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Post by slowfood on Apr 30, 2012 19:15:32 GMT
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Post by cannyfradock on May 1, 2012 12:03:52 GMT
If you want to start a mobile catering business you will have to register yourself with your local council. They do however give you a big freebie info pack on with all the criteria you need to follow. Going down the private route, these are the best people to contact... www.ncass.org.uk/ ...I'm not a member as I can't afford their registration fee (you still need to register though) Terry p.s.....just been through your threads on the FB Forum.....very impressive!!! |
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Post by tonyb on May 1, 2012 12:12:19 GMT
Good idea re a new heading hopefully Terry will see this and add one.
+1 re that site.
You've clearly put a lot of time and effort into the design of your mould, and if I was replacing my wfo I would seriously consider buying either a set of moulds or even an oven from you. The main problem, as you've already mentioned is that pre-cast wfos are a commodity item at the moment, mostly sold on cost and given that they are mostly sold over the internet people aren't able to view the differences in quality, so its difficult to separate the good from the not so good.
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Post by slowfood on May 2, 2012 20:53:01 GMT
Well from an engineering point of view my oven is ready, now just the cosmetic work to do, render, paint, paneling, blackboards stain and varnish etc, I may take a punt and put it up for sale. I'd prefer to spend my time building ovens at home over dealing with red tape. However I live in a fantastic catchment area (Weymouth..Olympics etc) for street food...
My nearest wood oven sells on average 300 pies a day (small pizzas at £5) Is this a normal day for an outdoor wfo?
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Post by tonyb on May 3, 2012 16:01:17 GMT
Although I've no personal experience to guide me 300 a day sounds a lot to me, I'd be surprised if any/many pizza restaurants did that level of business. If the pizzas are small, say 200g of dough, that equates to 60kg in total of which roughly 40kg is flour, that's an awful lot of dough to be mixing needing industrial machinery. Of course you could buy the crap pizza balls that the majority of pizza restaurants buy in wholesale, very few make their own dough these days. Also 300/day equates to ~37 per hour over 8hrs, which is quite a production rate. Ultimately volume will depend on footfall, competitors weather, occasion, etc, this type of casual business is a lot about the old adage of business 'location, location location' but quality of product is becoming more important which is the attraction of a wfo baked pizza. An alternative way of looking at it is to take a cost management approach ie what are the unit production costs per pizza, what are the overheads, what do you want as a minimum to make out of the business, what price will the market stand, use a spreadsheet to work out different volumes and see if the business plan stands up. This approach is both simple and complex in that the model is straightforward but the difficult thing is getting the price and volume estimates in the right ball park. Perhaps we could get the Apprentice to do a wfo episode  Terry has done some of this type of business so will be a in a good position to comment. |
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Post by pizzaofdreams on May 3, 2012 16:26:21 GMT
As you say it is all about the event and the weather. A good event normally will be terrible in the weather we have been having. At a point to point recently the sun came out a bit and most of the trade was done between 1pm and 3pm and we did nearly 200 pizzas for the day. 300 a day is not at all unrealistic, but I would suggest that is likely to be a festival or a weekend event with morning and evening exhibitor trade thrown in. But a weekend like last weekend will make a 300 pizza day into a 50 pizza day just like that and no one on the event will make their rent. Over the Easter Bank Holiday I was talking to the Ice cream man and he had been on site for a garden show for 4 days and hadn't cleared £190 in total! A decent sized oven will get three 12" Pizzas in at a time, 90 seconds to cook a thin base Pizza so a theoretical max of 120 and hour (a more realistic max is 100 per hour) but you would be flat out with toppers, dough rollers and servers to keep the oven full. A more comfortable high capacity run rate to allow sweeping the oven between batches and better management of the Pizzas would be around 70 per hour. If you could do that for 3 or 4 hours you'd be happy. But what was your rent? I had a weekend event recently that had bad weather and we did not do that many Pizzas but the rent was very low so we made money. The next weekend the rent was much higher for what should have been a bigger event and we lost money with the same weather. The new UK norm seems to be crap weather at the weekend and great drying weather on Monday and tuesday just to rub it in  |
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Post by cannyfradock on May 3, 2012 18:23:11 GMT
Reading between the lines I think "Slowfood" may be more interested in design and construction in the Modular oven field, than becoming a street vendor....A lucrative market if everything comes together.
I can relate to the comments of Pizzaofdreams as I have only recently started trading as a food vender with my mobile WFO. When things go good...they are good....unfortunately for me, due to the weather and white lies from event organisers things have more often than not.....gone tits up. Disappointment however on a few occasions hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for working a Wood-fired oven.
Terry
P.s ...Tony...this thread that Slowfood has created is very interesting. If you think it deserves it's own forum, please PM me where to place it...and what title to give it.
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Post by pizzaofdreams on May 4, 2012 12:23:41 GMT
cannyfradock, I share your pain. I think, like me you must be an eternal optimist. The glimpses of good business as soon as the weather is even only ok though, is enough to tell me that it can certainly work. Even more important, especially on the bad weather days, is the constant stream of positive comments about the wfo, the look of the stand and most importantly the quality of the food. Priceless!
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Post by slowfood on May 7, 2012 19:53:49 GMT
The place which sells 300 a day every day throughout August is a campsitr which only opens during August, It is in the cool camping guide and is chocka, www.eweleaze.co.uk/camping.htm > he has a captive audience however that is one campsite, I am surrounded by 4 very large campsites with a captive audience of 1600 people between them during peak season, I got into all this oven stuff years ago when we were camping in France, there the mobile pizza truck visited the sites every night and the village square. I did the show festival thing years ago with a mechanical rodeo bull and know the pain the rent can be however on the campsites the managers are often happy for a free meal without queing, blah blah blah, |
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Post by cannyfradock on May 8, 2012 19:32:58 GMT
Selling stuff on campsites in France....Oh yes I remember it well.
30 years ago I was in charge of a 3 story shopping complex in Cardiff. Good wages and prospects and responsible for about 30 staff. My own office and people calling me Sir. It just wasn't for me so one day I said Fuck it and sold up.....moved out and became a Market trader in France (pictures not pizza's). All legit with "carte de Sejour and my Marchant Ambulaunt certification......I lost £thousands but had the best time of my life and never regretted one single day. The experience put me in good stead and I soon bounced back to hold my own while living in France........If you have an idea......go for it. You'll only ever regret it if you don't try.
Sorry. but I thought I'd share that experience with the forum.
Terry
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Post by slowfood on May 8, 2012 20:14:42 GMT
ha ha, did the same thing but in Costa Rica, Now back in Blighty and pining for France, Have some property for sale in cOSTA rica right on the pacific, pools and wood oven (of course) If anyone's interested///////
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Post by cannyfradock on May 8, 2012 21:00:43 GMT
Slowfood
This is not bloody E-BAY
Terry
p.s......Would you consider a discount for forum members for your pad in Costa Rica?
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