First post - possible commerical venture?

[wildiowa]

Hello all..my first post. After a year of hemming and hawing I feel ready to test a possible portable wood fired pizza oven enterprise. As a first step I have purchased a dual-axle trailer capable of carrying a very heavy payload. The trailer is approx. 10' long and 8' wide. I am designing the layout etc. and my first topic is very basic and will determine everything moving forward: preparation and production.

If doing summer outside events such as county fairs, 4th of July, etc., is it best to prep each pizza fresh, on-site -- or prepare them ahead of time and transport to the event in a cooler or 'fridge? The size of the trailer would allow me to include some counter space and maybe even a refrigerator sink etc. etc. but seems it would be very efficient to actually try and assemble each pizza as far as you can ahead of time at home etc. so there is minimal hassle at the actual event....more sanitary, speed, control, yada yada....but is this sacrilege? Prepping pizza ahead of time, putting them in coolers, not fresh, the horror! On the one hand it seems to be not too big of a deal to make each one as ordered fresh and pop it in but on the other hand taking one out of the cooler pre-made adding a few items and popping it in also has some appeal. Making it there as part of the show and having people see that process that would also have significant appeal. I am a complete newby so how do you do this? Anyone out there doing this and have some basic suggestions? I have been reading a ton but now need to make some essential decisions that will shape my whole enterprise...THANKS!!

[david s]

This is an odd problem to be worrying about before you've even built your oven. The difficulty of removing wet dough off the peel is increased the longer it sits. It is possible to roll out the bases and freeze them, but you need good quality grease proof paper between each one. Unfortunately shoveling in really cold bases into the oven cools the oven floor quicker meaning a floor recharge is required more frequently. I think adding toppings as well will make things even more difficult. If the frozen bases are allowed to thaw too much you get the problem of them sticking again. The more usual method is to part cook the bases first. This makes operation much faster and easier because it eliminates sticking problems and you can have as many pre prepared pizzas as you like.Trouble with this method is that the result is, although pretty good, not quite up to the freshly baked pizza.

[wildiowa]

Thank you...yes, probably premature but I am trying to really think through this venture and plan very carefully, and this was a very fundamental question I needed to address.

[mefornaio]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Props on making the leap. I decide after a industry slow down in Oil and Gas (still going on) not to go back and instead focus on a mobile business as well as a home based operation. Years ago I had owned and operated a small (10'x10' oven) wholesale wood-fired bakery at a commercial location not a home based business. My comments are born out of real experience but keep in mind it was MY experience and it is now conveyed as opinion not gospel. I am in no way trying to discourage you (so please do not even think that) just give you a dose of reality.

Going ahead with a venture like this with minimal fundamental knowledge is going to be an arduous task with layers of learning curves. I went through it all as I'm sure several on this site have done. I still remember those sleepless nights of figuring out what the %%$# happened to that batch of dough or the countless hockey pucks that came out of the first oven I built at home as I was learning how to manage the oven without any fancy thermometers. Or how to time the dough's final rise with the oven being at proper baking temp. I remember thinking "hey there could be a market for bread shaped door stops right?" or "hmm maybe I could add a string and sell them as bird feeders?". Then one day it just all fell into place, it was as though I had learned all of the "dance steps" or "words to the song" then each day from there was spent focused on refining those steps or words. I had a slight advantage in that I was in the restaurant business for many years prior to my venture and had a working knowledge of operations and food prep on a larger than home scale but there was still a lot of curves. Making pizzas is different than baking bread but it still has many variables of its own.

I believe the question you ask can ultimately only be answered by YOU. It is YOU that have to develop a "concept" of what you want your customers to experience. Once you have decided on that THEN you can start to figure how to execute it. I mean if all your after is making a few bucks selling pizzas at events occasionally you can order everything from pre-made shells to fully dressed pizzas and simply bake them off. In the purest sense, in my opinion, a venture like this is in and of itself an "artisan" production. You have to ask yourself what YOU see it as.

I'm sure not every mobile is making fresh dough, handmade cheese,and locally sourced ingredients but Id be willing to bet you each one that operates successfully is keeping true to their concept within the confines of their particular market base. Lets face it concession vendors at the fair and public events for decades have made careers out of reheating frozen pre-made pizzas, its all about finding your market. Or better yet creating one.

Starting a business like this the learning curve is multi-fold. First you have the oven which is a living breathing thing, in NO WAY does it acts like a conventional oven. It will have hot spots and cold spots unique to YOUR oven, it will heat up faster or slower at times, your wood source will change with each batch ect,ect. Then you move on to the dough, if you are making scratch dough although you can do your best to keep it consistent it will ALWAYS be different slightly. You have yeast variation, temp variation ,humidity variation, the varying of domestic waters chlorine content, flour variations form lot to lot and so on all of which slightly alter the dough's behavior. If you have it made for you by a production facility although it will be more consistent than batching yourself it will STILL ALWAYS be slightly different such is the nature of dough. Now you take these 2 variables and combine them and you have a third which is putting it all together and having it work over and over and over again close enough each time to bring back customers that have acquired a "taste" for your products qualities. Then roll all of that into the business management portion, all of the above must be done in the most efficient manor as to generate a VIABLE profit. Then of course you have finding events, booking events, haggling about percentages, fees, spaces and on and on and on.

Is it doable absolutely its done every day. Most people never really bother, for what ever reason, to wonder HOW its done. They look at the product and say hmm its Pizza how hard can it be? Or muffins or bread or any other specific brand food product that we have acquired a taste for, a taste that we distinctly recognize as (insert favorite name here) and crave at times. The trick in my opinion is not in making the product, you could train a monkey to make pizza in a controlled environment one chain comes to mind ("Pizza Pizza") The trick is consistently producing the same high quality results and generating a VIABLE profit.

I would suggest getting/building your oven asap. As David eluded to this kind on thinking is way premature. You need to get that oven and get familiar with it, actually it sounds more like you need to start making and cooking pizzas in your home oven just to familiarize yourself with the process. Then adjust your process as you go.

If your focusing on the trailer layout you really need to start the process with your local health department. Make contact with them on this matter and start to build a relationship with them. Unless there are other WFO on trailers in your area DO NOT I repeat DO NOT mention this is your venture. As with any NEW CONCEPT agencies like these have no precedent and without such go into "you cant do that mode" They have no precedent and in my experience NOBODY wants to stick there neck out to help you set one. I went though this years ago when brick ovens were just making a surge in this country. My health department acted like I was asking to build a Nuclear Reactor. So keep it simple till you find out the atmosphere and experience of the inspectors. Find ONE person there that you can work with and keep them happy. As a general rule most field inspectors are pretty cool but as in any inspection based service you have the book worms that interpret the code as if they were working for NASA. Most health departments today now have a PDF packet of guidelines for a catering operations. You need to get a hold of this information as it will dictate necessary support equipment and even placement of such. In addition it will help familiarize you more with the process.

Good luck