frozen pizza

i see alot of competitors are getting there frozen pizzas 12in pizzas in retail stores,bars,ect, i have been wanting to get in this for awile now ,what are the steps i need to take to get this going i know i have to get a usda stamp but from there im kinda lost ,if any of you have got this going please tell me how you got this done,thank you

We are a IND. shop and we did just what you are talking about. It takes about 3-6 months of getting your facility and paperwork, HAACP, SSOP, SOP. Then every time you make pizzas your inspector has to be there!!! You also cannot have your regular pizza shop in operation during making frozen pizza. The big issue with inspector is the MEAT. You will have to come up with processes to prove your temps. You will also need at least 3 months of proven data to support your temps/process.

Overall it was and is a lot of work. I would say the equipment just to get started and upgrading our shop costs about 10-20K.

Hope this all helps.

VERY VERY competitive market.

In 6 months we are in 3 Grocery stores, 4 liquor stores, 2 bars, 5 gas stations.

sioux

With the capital expense you mentioned how long do you anticipate it will take to break even on this venture?

Wiz

Coming up soon, in the April issue, I’ve got an article addressing your specific question as to where to go to get the necessary information for becoming a “wholesale” food manufacturer.
As for payback/ROI, let me share this trur story with you. A good friend of mind was making an excellent quality pizza, and he wanted to take it to the supermarkets, I helped him, and together we launched a new, frozen pizza into our local market (not a huge market, one serving about half a million people). We even had television plugs for the product, pretty neat. I was pulling product from our local Dillon’s supermarket for weekly testing and evaluation. About 4-months into the launch, his product strangly disappeared from the shelves. It seems that one of the BIG players didn’t like the “new kid” on the block, so they began a local store promotion to increase sales, went something like this: They told the managers of the frozen foods section all they had to do was to sell X-number of cases of their product within the next 3-months and their name would be put into the hat for a drawing for a trip to some exotic location, all expenses paid! Since the managers had control over the foods in the cases, you can guess that our pizza was not displayed right up front, in fact, it was not displayed at all! This act of “kindness” put my friend out of business in just over 6-months. Keep in mind that there is no way a new, up start company can compete with an existing company with an established cash flow, not to even mention a large wholesale manufacturer that is out there protecting their turf. Just be cautious.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Hi Dash;

When you wholesale your product you can run into a lot of hassle if you have meat toppings on your pizza.

Many years ago I had a client that wanted to wholesale his pizzas. the cost to have his equipment and building brought up to the standards of the meat inspection folks were prohibitive.

I suggested he buy his meet products from a licensed meat processing company in small pre portioned packages and just shrink wrap those packaged in with his pizzas. The consumer had to bake the pizzas so spreading some pepperoni or sausage around on the pizzas was no big deal.

Good idea, he thought ,but at the time he could not find a company to package the products in small enough containers.

I notice now that some companies are offering pepperoni slices in small packages at retail. Perhaps someone could use the procedure I suggested now that meat products are available in smaller packages.

George Mills