Hello people of planet Earth,
Greetings form Angel & Claudia – the small team behind The Pizza Bike. We are on an unbelievable journey of riding a bright orange bicycle and making delicious hand made pizzas almost anywhere. We’ve started trading in April 2015 and in the last few months we did some amazing events, received a great feedback about our business and made everyone who met us or tried our pizzas smile!
It has been a great ride so far and we are now here on Kickstarter in a bid to make The Pizza Bike even better. We want to make a 21st century street food catering unit that is light, efficient and beautifully designed. Luckily enough we live in 2015 – the year of the future. There are plenty of technologies, tools and information that combined with your support will make all this possible.
In return for your support apart from a big Thank you we’re offering you some amazing hand crafted rewards!
Your pledges will go towards improving our current set up, buying an electric vehicle and professional refrigeration equipment that will enable us to attend more events, make more pizza, more dough and reach more people across South West England and beyond.
Sounds like a plan that you want to get involved – then check out our story and welcome aboard!
There are a few crucial goals that we want to achieve with this campaign, which will allow us to streamline and improve our business
The bike has already been converted into a electric one and in the last few months we successfully tested our concept in Bath & Bristol and The Pizza Bike proved to be able to tow a light weight version of the set up on short distances. We want to do some mechanical tweaks like improving the drive train, gears, breaks, replace the rear wheel and etc that will greatly improve the range, balance and riding performance.
Check out The Pizza Bike zooming through the streets of Bristol!
This part of the budget will also be used to streamline the set up and make everything as portable and light as possible.
We already use portable wood fired pizza ovens ( Uuni – A Kickstarter project from 2012) as our main engines and all of our cookware can be fit in a medium size box. All the equipment, apart from the gazebo, can also be loaded in our trailer. During the last few months the set up proved to be quite sturdy and flexible, but there is still a lot of room for improvements.
We’ve received some great feedback about our pizzas and magic sourdough and we want to turn our signature hand made pizza dough into a commercially available product for home use that can be distributed through local stores and markets or directly to customers using bikes or electric vehicle.
A few lucky friends are already Beta tasting our sourdough in their homes with great feedback so far. Working with sourdough is always difficult and takes time, but the beauty of it is the more you use it the better the sourdough gets. The recipe is improving with every batch and at the moment our fresh sourdough has a 7+ days of shelf life without using any preservatives. We’ve also optimized the recipe so the dough can be sold as frozen without compromising the quality.
The key to making a great sourdough is the long and cold fermentation process it has to go through. To achieve consistent results we need professional refrigeration equipment that will allow us to precisely control the fermentation temperature (our £30 Gumtree Special Refrigerator has its limitations). Our sourdough doesn’t require a lot of kneading which means that it can be easily mixed and kneaded by hand without the need of dough mixers and other mixing equipment.
Our Sourdough starter is the key element of our dough. It’s called Spelty and it was born in January 2014 in the beautiful City Of Bath, Somerset.
Since then Spelty has been making amazing homemade breads and pizzas. We use the starter on a daily basis now and its magical flavour is improving and getting better with every batch of dough we do. Due the process our sourdough is made it will always taste different and great of course.
Another part of the budget would be used to create the packaging and cover the initial distribution and marketing costs. The packaging will be as simple and cost efficient as possible. We’re currently researching and experimenting with a few solutions for shipping and transporting chilled and frozen food that will make sure customers can get their dough in its finest condition. All the design and the marketing would be done in house which will greatly reduce the cost of launching the product.
In order to cater for bigger events and deliver our pizza dough on longer distances we need a good support vehicle. We took the fully electric Nissan E-NV200 for a test drive recently and it is the perfect futuristic vehicle that has a good balance between range and loading capacity that will give us a real boost and we can expand operations in Bath, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire.
The van has 60-70 miles of real life range which combined with the growing number of charging points installed in Bristol area will allow us to do our deliveries at almost zero cost. Being a zero emission vehicle will allow the project to stay its green and sustainable concept. We will also use it to transport our stall to festivals and events in Somerset, South Gloucestershire and Wiltshire.
The cost of a new Nissan ENV200 is around £26 000. We will use £5000 of the Kickstarter budget to make an initial deposit and lease the vehicle. If we manage to exceed our target of £21 000 the extra money will be used to purchase and own the vehicle as soon as possible.
The van would be our biggest investment and being a very well connected hi-tech vehicle will be used as a mobile office as well.
We work with some great suppliers and event organizers and in order to plan ahead and get to more events we do need some cash in hand to take care of all those boring but necessary behind the scenes expenses like paying events fees in advance, stocking up pizza boxes, consumables and etc. We already have a weekend pitch at The Harbourside Market in Bristol and the money will help us to secure more trading pitches during the week. Life might be a pizza, but cheese cost money :)
Upon successful competition of the campaign we will fulfill all the rewards by February 2016. In that period we will also work on securing trading pitches and start selling our dough in local stores or directly to customers in Bath and Bristol area. From February we’ll start fulfilling the dough orders, doing the private parties, trading at markets and work on extending our street food menu and developing a few different types of dough. In the summer season we are aiming to attend mostly small and medium festivals across Somerset, Wiltshire, South Wales and Secret Garden Party 2016 of course. Last Summer we attended numerous events in those areas and we’ve already got a lot of invitations to attend those events again! In the Autumn we’ll focus more on selling the dough and develop a few new ideas for 2017.
Our business development strategy is simple – we use classic designs and advance technologies to keep our costs down and invest in quality hardware, best possible ingredients and great people to deliver you amazing food at fair prices.
During our Kickstarter campaign and the rest of the Autumn / Winter season you can find us on the weekends at The Harbourside Market in Bristol. The Pizza Bike is a venture that is always on the move so follow us @thepizzabike or check thepizzbike.co.uk/events for the latest info about our whereabouts.
If we had a TV, this would be our advert!
Great ingredients make great pizza! Simple as that and we don’t cut corners here – All of our pizzas are made to order from scratch using only flour, water, pinch of salt, love, passion, sunshine tomatoes, Italian buffalo mozzarella, quality locally sourced toppings and a little bit of fire and magic.
Our Menu is simple but powerful – Currently we offer three different types of pizzas and occasionally trying new specials :)
Our menu is constantly evolving and improving and we have some exiting new dishes coming soon – think about Goat Cheese, Prosciutto, Tuna, fresh produce blended with hand made sourdough and the imagination of pizza lovers.
“@PaulHollywood I tried @thepizzabike recently and it was amazing! Here’s their garlic bread with chorizo: pic.twitter.com/bZWjR4G4ER”
“@thepizzabike lovely people serving yummy Pizza on a bike.Great to see you @BathMotorFest I hope @GlastMarket goes well for you.x”
Check out thepizzabike.co.uk/reviews for a snapshot of what our customers and friends are saying about us.
The project started in July 2014 as an improvised art installation at Bristol Harbourside Festival combining an old bicycle, shopping basket, disposable bbq and a pizza stone that all together made the first ever pizza making bicycle! It was inspired by Angel’s passion for outdoor cooking and desire to cook something a bit more challenging than burgers and sausages.
“All of my friends were telling me “Angel you should open a restaurant or something!” I’ve opted for “something” because neither had the money or experience to run a restaurant, always have been an outdoor person and that was something that nobody ever tried to do”
A few months later in October 2014 another coincidence happen and we bumped across an amazing little pizza oven called Uuni, that looked like the perfect light weight engine needed to power our imaginary portable pizzeria.
After a few pizza sessions in our secret Research & Development facility in Bristol we end up with a sketchy drawing and the design challenge to build a bike you can set fire on it
The next step of the project was a little bit more complicated – turning that drawing into a reality wasn’t just a walk in the park. But with the help of friends, a lot of imagination, power drill, Google and few cardboard boxes, building the impossible began.
The next three months involved a lot of late night development, researching, drilling, painting, design challenges, a lot of improvisation and in February 2015 the magic happen! The Pizza Bike evolved from a dream to something absolutely real!
With the bike all done it was time to find a legit place to trade. We started with Keynsham Farmer’s market in April where we sold 6 Margheritas, 1 Pepperoni and 1 Sobrasadita. The people’s reaction was overwhelming and The Pizza Bike officially enter the real world.
The word about a bright orange bicycle making pizza quickly spread around the local interweb and in the last few months we were lucky to become part of part of Glastonbury Farmers Market, Green Park Station, Bath, The Harbourside Market, Bristol, Eat Drink Fashion Market, Bristol, British Street Food Awards 2015, Warminster Wobble Cycling Festival, Bath Festival Of Motoring, Secret Garden Party Festival, Bristol International Kite Festival, Glastonbury Brocante Fair, Bradford on Avon Cycling Festival !
We do managed to sell a few more pizzas, made a lot of friends and our Marketing Department come up with another idea that our corporate branding slogan should be “The Smallest Pizzeria In The World”
The people behind the project:
” Hello world, I’m Angel and after doing so many different jobs ranging from construction, retail sales, product photography and graphic design I end up combining two of the things I love to do – cycling and cooking into one and founding The Pizza Bike. When I’m not doing that I ride bikes, shoot street photography and explore the world. The last 10 years of working and living abroad thought me many things, but the most important is – Everything you ever wanted is just out your comfort zone, so don’t get stuck in the traffic, keep moving! Enjoy what you do, respecting the people you’re doing it with, always learn something new and you will be having the best of your life. Check out aganev.co.uk for more info about me and my travels”
The Chief Entertainment Officer on What is The Pizza Bike?
“Ciao I’m Claudia, one of the most fun and tasty things that i’ve ever tried since I moved to England is the pizza from The Pizza Bike and it was a love at first sight! I love cooking, eating and everything around food. I think this is the best way to explore a new culture, share with friends and to have fun.” During the last 2 years cooking become not only my passion but my job as well. Every day I’m learning more and more but something from which I can’t detach myself is as simple, easy and tasty as a pizzzaaaa!”
The Vice president of Margherita talking about the ingredients we use.
Together we are #TeamPizzaBike and despite the fact we got lost from time to time and sometimes forget the Jalapeños we make one the best wood fired pizzas you would ever try. Anywhere!
The Pizza Bike project wouldn’t be possible without the countless support from friends and family who in the last 4 months have been stepping up on short notice to help with everything ranging from financial and business advices to caring boxes, selling pizzas and everything in between.
Despite the fact that The Pizza Bike is still a baby business we have been lucky to be featured in The Independent, Bath Life Magazine, Great little place called Bristol and nominated for the first Bath Independent Business Awards.
Our hand crafted rewards!
If you want to support our project apart from a big Thank you! we have some cool rewards to offer!
Your short message we will publish it on our backers’ wall at thepizzabike.co.uk/kickstrarer . Each backer would have the option to link his message with his own website, blog, project, funny video of a cat ;) – it’s all up to you, just keep it cool and be nice.
A good old fashioned post card with a real stamp, personal thank you from us and a quick recipe how to make pizza for a first time ever.
Sourdough Starter
A personal voucher for one special Kickstarter pizza meal deal available at any of our events through the next year. Any Pizza + Any Extra +Garlic Bread
Be one of the first ones to our fresh hand made pizza dough. You will be able to pick up this delicious sourdough form a local health store near you or it will be be delivered to you by a bicycle or our electric van. (This reward is exclusively available in Bath, Bristol and Glastonbury area).
All of our dough orders will be fulfilled by February 2016
You will receive a personal voucher for a special private pizza party for 25, 50 or 100 people available to redeem through the next year. We are going to make a special menu tailored to your specific requirements and trust us we can source pretty much any topping you can imagine. A great way to celebrate a wedding, anniversary, birthday party or surprise your staff with an unusual Christmas Party.
(This reward is available in Bath, Bristol Somerset, Wiltshire and South Gloucestershire)Please send us a message if you are outside of any of those we still might be able to help
The Ultimate Private Pizza Party for 25-30 people – you would have a chance to try our “If we lived in a perfect world” Menu – Each party would be one of a kind art experience with dishes too crazy to be sold. You will not only try one of the best pizza in town – you will think about pizza for the rest of the month :) You can redeem this reward in 1 year . Bookings has to be done at least one month in advance to ensure we are available on the date you want. (Available Anywhere in England)
Be not only a customer, be part of the team. Get a exclusive membership card which will entitle you to two pizzas at any of our events until the end of time. You will receive an exclusive updates about the project and to honour your contribution to the project we will make a pizza that represents you and put it on the menu.
This is our story so far which is just the beginning of our journey! Be part of it and share the good vibes!
Thanks for stopping by and see you at a sunny spot near you!
Angel, Claudia & friends!