News today about a new book on pizza from the founders of Pizza Pilgrims – a company who have demonstrated amazing agility in lockdown.
As the Rolling Stones sung in their lockdown hit Living in a Ghost Town:
Life was so beautiful
Then we all got locked down
Pizza Pilgrims a pizzeria with 12 restaurants in London and one in Oxford responded to the lockdown by quickly starting to send out pizzas in DIY kit form. Initially this was just to the London area via Deliveroo. In mid-April they took their service nationwide shipping next day via Royal Mail. They then scaled up due to massive demand and switched to DPD delivery.
Founder Thom Elliot said “I tried to think of something that would serve our customers, who kept calling us, and also keep us relevant during these times.”
The basic Neapolitan kit costs £15 and contains two pieces of dough, tomato sauce, basil, flour, olive oil, and a parmesan cheese topping, and was shipped in recyclable packaging.
I ordered several kits during lockdown and my children looked cooking with them – instructions and the videos were dead simple to follow! Loads of people share their creations via Instagram and Twitter.
Pizza Pilgrims have kept iterating and now also offer a Ndjua pizza kit, plus options for either a 2 or 4 pizza pack.
They have also joined up with several other restaurants as part of Restaurant Kits which are increasingly being used by companies to provide virtual team building cook-a-long events from home such as this example posted by Alisa at Wagestream.
You can read more about the two brothers who started Pizza Pilgrims selling initially from a van in one of my old haunts Berwick Street market.
Customer-focused, willing to experiment, frequent iterations, from idea to a new product launch in days – some of the themes that emerge from this example.