European Pizza Pasta Show.

A welcome RETURN

October’s European Pizza & Pasta Show marked a welcome return to some normality as many of the sector’s well known brands and businesses were able to gather, catch up and network, as well as take a closer look at products old and new in the world of Italian food.

LOOKING FORWARD

In her opening, welcome address Slava Blagoeva, managing director of IPR Events, organisers of the show, thanked everyone who believed in, and had supported, the holding of the show this year in the midst of so many challenges, and who had been brave enough to come and meet with everyone and the show’s visitors.

In his welcome speech, PAPA director, Jim Winship, said how great it was to be back together again after 18 months of being locked down and of “struggling through”. “Unfortunately, we still seem to be struggling through things with lots of shortages of lorry drivers, and staff, and everything else in this industry,” he added. “But we’re here, and we can look forward to a great future of the pizza, pasta and Italian food industry in the UK, and this show is very much part of that.”

Jim Winship congratulated Slava Blagoeva for keeping the event going, and helping to get the industry back on its feet again after all the time that had gone by; the Pizza Pasta & Italian Food Association in particular welcoming this show as a showcase for the industry as a whole, it being a very important part of the UK economy.

“We may face a lot of challenges from our government at the moment,” Jim Winship added, “but we’re here, and we’re going forward, and we’re resilient and we will survive, and we will do well.”

The opening day also saw Caputo’s MD, Antimo Caputo, awarded with the title of Honorary President of the European Pizza & Pasta Show in London in recognition of his, and his Neapolitan flour company’s, long-standing support

of the event since its launch in 2016.

Antimo Caputo said he was very proud to receive such an award for a number of reasons, not least when it had originally been announced that this event would be held in London; the UK’s capital, in his opinion, being a place where there are a lot of things to do, a place where people liked to be, as well as it being a place where the company had a lot of friends (there being a big connection between Italy and the UK, but more so, he could see, with the Campania region of Italy and Naples in particular).

“We feel at home here, with a lot of friends,” he said. “The exhibition is a connection with the market, but also with friends. A place where we exchange ideas but also cultural experiences… In Italy, we are used to doing our job every day, but when we see love and passion for the product, we recognise it… I will keep the certificate in my heart as well as in my office!”

PIZZA CHEF COMPETITIONS

The first day of the show saw the hosting of the always hotly contested final of PAPA’s Pizza Chef of the Year competition (turn to page 22 for a round-up of the competitors and their winning pizzas).

In the 2021 European Pizza Championship, held on the second day of the event, it was the UK’s Florin Tudor who took first place. From

Northampton, and a pizza chef at the World Restaurant, he succeeded in beating strong competition from professional pizza chefs from all over Europe.

Judged by Thierry Graffagnino, Massimo Costanzo, Giorgio Riggio, Andrea Alestra and Ovidiu Cheabac, Florin Tudor impressed the judges by presenting a Neapolitan-style pizza with a tomato base and fior di latte mozzarella stuffed with Parma ham, goat cheese, pecorino, Japanese sauce and basil (this combination of toppings paired with the delicacy of the dough being rated the best by the five competition experts).

The second place was taken by Liviu Nitu of the Red Pizza Van in Sevenoaks (UK), while the third place was awarded to Joris Atoch de L’Etable des Complices from Bonneville (France). Other competitors were Kamal Jayasinghage, Aymeric Provence, Fabio Alveti, Szymon Skibinski, Riccardo Birghillotti, Maurizio Trionfera, Francesco Oppido and Marco De Cristofaro.

SECTOR INSIGHT

In his presentation, director of Boss Pizza, Ajmal Mushtaq – already known to many in the sector via his commentary on the takeaway sector as a whole in the trade press, and via television programmes such as Best of British Takeaways and Dispatches, focused on what he thought were the top ten tips for operators going forward into 2022.

In conversation with Antimo Caputo, he outlined to Pizza Pasta & Italian Food how the pandemic, and other challenges, had impacted pizza flour supply, as well as fostered consumer interest in a professional product. People were at home more, he said, had started to cook and learn more, and wanted specialist ingredients.

“We now have a consumer who knows more, knows recipes – ‘I can cook pizza too!’ - and who can recognise quality. There is more domestic competition now and the quality has to be higher,” said Antimo Caputo.

“This is a very strong trend we are sensing now, and we have an opportunity with our retail lines and retail customers, such as with the sudden demand for yeast, which everybody was buying during lockdown. At the same time, the consumer is a more sensitive one, often changing their diet – the gluten-free demand, for instance.”

Caputo use Italian and European wheat, and Canadian wheat for specific requirements such as for the US or Australia and the type of flour required there, and so need to be able to supply the right flour to such customers for the right recipe.

“Today, the supply chain has totally changed,” said Antimo Caputo.

“The shipment is more expensive, difficult and busier. We have experienced an unbelievable increase in the cost of raw material (the wheat), because of the weather conditions and a higher consumption demand from populations. This year, the corn price also went up, so a lot of buyers moved to buy wheat instead, causing demand and the price to soar, and as a producer you are having to manage a lot of aspects.

“A crazy effect of all this was that people had been ‘buying just to buy’, as opposed to what they need. So, in order to balance and manage things, I would say that you need to be well connected with your supplier.

“We are having to increase our prices, but slowly, with a progressive increase. Flour is a basic ingredient, but at the same time I have to balance things in terms of the performance of the company. The price rises will be unsustainable long term, so they will have to be passed on to consumers.

“It’s difficult to say how long things will stay like this, but at least one year. For one thing, the crop is yearly, so we have to wait for the next crop in July 2022, which will then in turn be impacted by the weather and levels of remaining stock.”

Problems are being experienced in all ports, including Naples, the company confirmed, with ships often unable to dock due to queues, therefore leading longer lead and product delivery times.

Cost of freight was an issue, coupled with the availability of empty containers (you can be asking for too much space, and then the loading time can’t be met etc.). This, in turn, means that better organisation of shipments is required, advise Caputo, because sometimes it is just not possible to meet the usual, or quick, delivery times in the current situation. So whereas when a week might have been sufficient to raise an order, now a month is required. And then when the delivery arrives, there can be other problems such as a driver shortage.

Currently, with the new generation of pizza makers having studied ingredients and technique, the style and nature of pizza itself, which has been very light with a very high crust is now tending to embrace a mix of contemporana and Neopolitan, and cooked a little more, to form a sort of ‘neo-Neapolitan’ style pizza (“pizza Napoletana meets contemporana pizza”). New ingredients were increasingly being used (some pizzamakers using small meatballs in the pizza, which might sound odd to some, for instance). There was also a trend for more sliced pizza. An evolution rather than a revolution, feels Antimo Caputo, because pizza in a slice format has always been around.

After surges in the popularity of pizza in markets such as Japan and the UK over the years, currently, Northern Europe and the Baltic states in particular are becoming more interested in pizza, Antimo Caputo reported.

Pizza business advice from Boss Pizza

After originally starting out with a small food business selling Indian food and employing just four people in Hamilton, Scotland, Ajmal Mushtaq’s enterprise grew and grew to a significant size, its takeaway kitchen becoming the biggest one in Britain producing one meal every 15 seconds...

PIZZA OPPORTUNITY

However, it was at the start of the pandemic, when Ajmal Mustaq decided to move into the pizza business because “making pizza is really easy (it’s not!)”, he said, “as the skill level was not as intense as in the Indian food sector,” with a number of chefs required, whereas in the pizza business a sole pizza chef is typically the case.

Within four months of starting Boss Pizza at the start of the pandemic, the sales were approximately £18,000 a week, he reported, which some might think is very good, others not, but given the fact they operate from a small town outside Glasgow with plenty of competition such as Domino’s and Papa John’s, and various independents, he felt it was very good from a ‘standing start’. His top ten tips that had worked for Mushtaqs, as well as Boss Pizza, were as follows.

TOP TIPS

Marketing – no point in doing a good job, if no-one knows about it. Is your pizza the best in town, and how many people in the past week have you told? That needs to be done, and frequently (at Boss Pizza they spend around 45% of their time doing this with 8% of the total sales spent on marketing with some 20 different marketing channels including the local newspaper and social media, with at least one ending up registering with customers).

The two most important words in Facebook advertising in 2022 would be pixel and event, but was anyone familiar with these two terms? Pixel is generated by Facebook, and is a code to put on your web site (when someone visits your website and takes an action - for example, buying something - the Facebook pixel is triggered and reports this action/ event. This way, you’ll know when a customer took an action after seeing your Facebook ad).

Menu distribution and the tracking of orders placed by addresses that had received a menu (the best day for menu distribution he had found, being a Thursday, having had experience of doing this for some 10 years).

Branded cars (it being currently possible to hire a branded, fully warranted car for £160 a month), and especially in a reasonably large quantity which, in its own right, acted as statement. A big mistake, he felt, was to put a lot of wording and messaging on the car, when in actual fact just the name of pizza business and a phone number on the back was really all that was needed.

Giving back to the community. Every Monday they delivered freshly made pizzas to the soup kitchen. A lot of companies gave away items at the end of the day, but they did not, preferring to deliver fresh pizzas, with members of the community wanting to get involved as well. If you are serious about marketing and branding, having good exceptional, selection of food imagery is a must.

Another thing all brands should do in 2022 is keep things (marketing messaging and customer service) light-hearted, and much more consumer-relevant, said Ajmal Mushtaq.

You also need to create brand power in every single interaction the customer has with your business (product, delivery driver and car, packaging etc); this helps to automatically put you ahead of the competition he felt, and create brand credibility over time.

Challenge the leader (in their case, they had gone straight to challenging the brand leader in their area, Domino’s Pizza, but making sure they could also back up any claims, such as “40% bigger” etc).

Have a strategic, targeted marketing campaign based on the techniques outlined to drive people to want a pizza, and thus solve their question of ‘what am I having for dinner tonight?’. This could be achieved by parking a branded car in the target area first thing, followed by a leaflet drop in the morning in that same area, then an offer-related text message using contact information on your database, then a mid-afternoon email, with orders coming in from 4.30pm to 10pm, he claimed, and neighbours seeing neighbours ordering pizza etc, and thus tempted to do likewise. This approach had acted as a very potent marketing strategy, he had found. It took a lot of energy and resource, so they typically carried it out on a once a month basis.