Meet the pizza duo cutting through the "free-from" market
If you wandered into any restaurant or supermarket (before the coronavirus crisis of course), you would see endless options for health-conscious customers who favour a lifestyle free from gluten and dairy. It's a trend that big companies have keenly capitalised on, who can forget Greggs's glorious win with the meat-free âsteak bakeâ last year, which saw the pastries chain generate a stealthy 27% rise in pre-tax profits. Even back in 2018, the UK launched the most vegan produce than any other country. So if you are a keen entrepreneur eager to enter the food industry, it would probably be best to favour plants over poultry in order to rack in a hefty profit. If you're looking for proof, search no further than Italian/British business duo, Matteo Ferrari and Nick Croft-Simon, co-founders of the multi-million brand White Rabbit Pizza. Today, they are selling their fresh-from-the-fridge pizzas in over 750 UK stores and revenues are expected to hit ÂŁ3.5M for the year ahead. Real Business sits down with the pair to hear their recipe for success... Real Business (RB): Why the pizza industry?Â
Nick (right) and Teo (left) were coworkers in their local pub before creating their pizza brand. Matteo Ferrari (TF): Iâve been involved with pizza since I was young! Iâm originally from Bergamo in Northern Italy and had worked in my uncleâs pizzeria most of my life. I later moved to the UK and became head chef at âThe White Rabbitâ pub in Oxford city centre, I took over the menu and got to work making loads of pizzas. At the pub, I met Nick, who was a bartender and we started the journey to âThe White Rabbit Pizza Coâ. We both noticed that there were loads of customers coming in asking for free-from pizzas and thatâs where we had the idea that something was missing from the supermarket shelves. RB: A growing number of young millennials are eager to become entrepreneurs, what's your advice for them? NicK Croft-Simon (NS): Be a sponge! There are some things in business you can only learn through experience, and people who have been there and done it are a short cut to that experience. Take every coffee, phone call, etc, you can; take advantage of the fact that people inherently love giving advice. If you have started a successful business, chances are you have gone through a lot of pain and problem solving to get there, reliving this journey and offering insight gives you a great sense of pride and fulfilment. You aren't being a nuisance, you're stroking their ego, so don't be afraid to ask! RB: How did you get brands like Waitrose or Sainsburyâs to recognise you? NS: We actually got very lucky with Sainsburyâs, they approached us! But ultimately, thatâs because of all of the hard work weâd put in beforehand. Weâd been listed in smaller retailers, like Abel & Cole, Ocado, Whole Foods, etc and had started to build a reputation in these retailers and with shoppers for being delicious pizzas.  We also started to collect a number of awards from Lunch!, Great Taste and FreeFrom Food. So by putting in the hard work on making great pizzas, getting the word out through loads of samplings in these smaller retailers, weâd begun to build a name for ourselves among free-from shoppers and thatâs when Sainsburyâs approached us in 2017.  With Waitrose, we reached out to them but the timing was perfect as they were putting a huge focus behind plant-based ranges. RB: Any tips for smaller brands who want to be stocked in major supermarkets? TF: Often with these big retailers, youâre going to need to approach them and have a really clear case on what you bring to the market and their shoppers. Theyâre also going to want to see youâve been successful with shoppers in the smaller, independent retailers. Making sure youâre really consumer-focused and have developed and engineered your product to meet a clear demand is key and will ultimately help you to build relationships with the bigger retailers. RB: Would the business be as successful if you had not capitalised on the growing trend of "vegan" and "gluten-free" food?
Nick and Teo are offering traditional pizzas with a "free-from" twist TF: The idea of our brand was to disrupt and modernise what we thought was quite a stagnant pizza fixture, but we knew that to have any chance, we needed to focus on serving unmet consumer needs, it was the best route to becoming the challenger brand we wanted to be. The category is dominated by very big players and I think if weâre honest, without delivering an unmet need, we wouldâve been crushed fairly quickly had we tried to enter the space. RB: What do you think the biggest challenge is for first-time business owners? NS: Stress! For years I struggled to reconcile the fact that the thing that brought me the most joy in my life also brought me, by far, the most misery. For every year we survived, I was no less stressed than I was at the very beginning. The moment I embraced the constant, terrifying fear of failure and began to see it for what it was,I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. The day-to-day stress and angst is still there, but my relationship with that stress is totally different. RB: What has been a business high, and business low for you? TF: We are very people-oriented and our biggest lows and highs are reflective of that. Our deepest lows, if weâre honest, have always come from trying to mix business with friendship. They were undoubtedly the most difficult obstacles that weâve had to overcome. Thankfully, it did no lasting damage to our relationships with these friends, but that didnât make it any less painful at the time. Similarly, the biggest high we feel is when we look around and see a flourishing team of people who care about our business as much as we do. There is no greater feeling of fulfilment than that, and we try to remind ourselves of it every single time we step into the office. . Read the full article
