help with pizza delivery service

brooklyn07

Hi All

I was thinking of starting up my own pizza delivery service as domino's, pizza hut are too far away where i live.
My questions are - can i start this from home i.e cook the pizzas from home then deliver them (employ someone to deliver) becuase obviously i dont want to have to pay upfront for a unit and all catering equipment if the business isnt going to take off!

What would happen if someone claimed to have food poisoning - how would i cover myself? what insurance would i need? what qualifications would i need?

Sorry for allt he questions but i need to make sure i can afford this upfront before i jump in!

FatVonD

I don't know whether you could do this from home, I guess lots of the cupcake businesses do?

For insurance you'd probably need Public Liability Insurance and basic food hygiene certificates would be good. You could try calling your local council to see if your kitchen needs to be checked out by Environmental Health?

Sorry, I'm not much help but didn't want to read and run! Hopefully someone else will be along soon!

steve1980

Look for a franchise. To be fair, you can't run that sort if business from home. What if someone orders 5 pizzas. Do you have an oven big enough to do that? You need a professional pizza oven conveyor which costs from memory circa £10k.

As above you will also need food hygiene, PLI, you'll need to get the correct business licence, delivery driver as you can't prepare, cook and deliver.

brooklyn07

steve1980 wrote: »

Look for a franchise. To be fair, you can't run that sort if business from home. What if someone orders 5 pizzas. Do you have an oven big enough to do that? You need a professional pizza oven conveyor which costs from memory circa £10k.

As above you will also need food hygiene, PLI, you'll need to get the correct business licence, delivery driver as you can't prepare, cook and deliver.

yeah i wasnt planning on doing the delivery myself just the cooking - would i really need such a big oven? i've seen the mobile ones at shows/fetes in small gas type ovens and they still seem to get them out quickly.
food hygiene wotn be a problem theres a college across the road that does it.

lincroft1710

Were you thinking of employing someone to do the deliveries or using a family member. Employing someone opens up all sorts of problems, NI, PAYE, enough profit to pay them NMW, cover if they're sick or on leave.

How will you advertise? Have you a big enough fridge/freezer to store all your ingredients? As the "big boys" are too far away is there a large enough catchment area for your enterprise?

Savvy_Sue

In addition to all the above ...

Have you done your costings? How much will the ingredients for 10 pizzas cost? What will you be able to sell them for? How many times the difference between the two do you need to pay your increased fuel bills, and a driver, and still turn a profit?

Do you rent or own your own home? How close are you to your neighbours? If you rent, there will be a clause in your tenancy agreement telling you not to run your own business. If you ask for permission, I'd guess you'd be refused because you are likely to cause a 'nuisance': smell, people coming and going, commercial collection of refuse needed ...

What hours do you plan to offer your service, evenings only or lunchtimes as well?

Environmental Health will DEFINITELY want to check out your kitchen.

Do you have any catering experience at all?

paulwf

Do you have neighbours? If so I'd imagine they'd be very unhappy at having youths on mopeds buzzing around half the night collecting pizzas. If you upset your neighbours they might do everything in their power - legal or otherwise - to close you down.

themull1

I don't think i would buy pizzas from a random house, no pizza places, get an indian or chinese!!

brooklyn07

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

In addition to all the above ...

Have you done your costings? How much will the ingredients for 10 pizzas cost? What will you be able to sell them for? How many times the difference between the two do you need to pay your increased fuel bills, and a driver, and still turn a profit?

Do you rent or own your own home? How close are you to your neighbours? If you rent, there will be a clause in your tenancy agreement telling you not to run your own business. If you ask for permission, I'd guess you'd be refused because you are likely to cause a 'nuisance': smell, people coming and going, commercial collection of refuse needed ...

What hours do you plan to offer your service, evenings only or lunchtimes as well?

Environmental Health will DEFINITELY want to check out your kitchen.

Do you have any catering experience at all?

Thanks for comments - to answer some of the questions it would be a very good friend i would employ at the beginning to help me out, they are a delivery driver by trade so already have the relevant insurance - the delivery driver used to be in the catering trade - i however have zero knowledge in the catering trade but i'm a good cook - although i dont know how much cooking would be involved in just putting some pizzas in an oven...

I own my own home but I've had a think about renting a premesis that already does some form of catering during the week and i could use just on the weekends to start out with - that way it would already have the relevant things i would need such as hot water, ovens etc. Haven't even thought about the costs side of it - there's no point in me going into that until i can work out if i can actually rent somewhere and if i'm allowed to do it.

There's a big enough catchment area where i live and far away from the other chains.

Jowo_2

Do a business plan - this will cover the risks and issues that have been discussed here, give you a complete handle on the costs/profits, competitors. What is plan B if your driver is sick?

Go to the business link website (or Scottish enterprise for Scotland) and this will tell you how to draw up a business plan which will cover premises, staffing, finance and so on.

jexygirl

brooklyn07 wrote: »

i however have zero knowledge in the catering trade but i'm a good cook - although i dont know how much cooking would be involved in just putting some pizzas in an oven...

So you don't intend to make the pizzas to order from scratch as it were? Just putting pre mades in the oven? Not sure thats a USP!

If you are intending to make home made ones, the time it takes to batch make the base dough, prep / pre chop toppings, make the tomato base sauce etc. needs to be considered. As well as time taken to do orders, collect or take deliveries, answer the phone, do the books etc.

brooklyn07 wrote: »

I own my own home but I've had a think about renting a premesis that already does some form of catering during the week and i could use just on the weekends to start out with - that way it would already have the relevant things i would need such as hot water, ovens etc. Haven't even thought about the costs side of it - there's no point in me going into that until i can work out if i can actually rent somewhere and if i'm allowed to do it.

Can't think off the top of my head of somewhere with appropriate catering facilities, that wouldn't be trading itself on a weekend, unless you mean like a village hall or something.

I think you need to sit down and work out a buisness plan first to see if its viable and what your turnover needs to be to break even on the increased outgoings.

Jex