How to start up a pizza delivery business

The pizza delivery business in the United Kingdom has seen significant growth in recent years. According to a report by Mintel, the number of pizza delivery businesses has increased by 50% since 2012. The report attributed this growth to the popularity of pizza as a convenience food, as well as the rise of delivery-only businesses. However, the pizza delivery business is not without its challenges.

The most significant challenge is the competition from other delivery businesses, such as Chinese and Indian restaurants. In order to succeed, pizza delivery businesses need to differentiate themselves from their competitors. One way to do this is by offering a wider range of pizzas, as well as side dishes and desserts. Delivery businesses should also focus on providing a superior customer service experience.

This can be done by ensuring that deliveries are made on time and that orders are accurate. By meeting these challenges, pizza delivery businesses can continue to thrive in the United Kingdom. Start and run your own pizza delivery business with our helpful step by step guide.

Steps in booting your pizza delivery business

So, you want to start your own pizza delivery business? Before you start whipping up pizzas in your kitchen, there are a few things you need to do first. First, you need to figure out what kind of business structure you want for your pizza business. Will you be a sole proprietor, partnership, or limited company? Once you’ve decided on the business structure, you need to obtain the necessary licenses and permits from your local council. Next, you need to find a good location for your pizza business.

If you’re planning on delivery only, then you’ll need to find a location with high foot traffic and good parking. If you’re planning on having a sit-down restaurant as well, then you’ll need to find a location that’s large enough to accommodate a ghost kitchen or both including a dining area. Finally, once you’ve got everything in place, it’s time to start advertising your business.

Let everyone know that there’s a new pizza place in town! Place flyers around town, put up signs, and list your business in online directories. With a little bit of effort, you’ll soon have customers lining up for your delicious pizzas!

Research your target market

Planning your pizza delivery business requires that you consider your potential customers, the amount of demand, and how well that demand is already met. This can be accomplished by conducting some market research.

Estimating demand

Despite pizza’s popularity, the catering industry is very competitive right now. There are many different places where you can get pizza, such as:

• Other delivery services, such as Domino’s Pizza and Papa Hut
• Pizza restaurants, including independents and chains such as Pizza Express
• Restaurants and cafes serving Italian cuisine
• Take-out pizza kiosks
• A wide variety of frozen, fresh, chilled, and ready-to-eat pizzas are available at supermarkets and convenience stores

In terms of the total market for pizzas, pizza home delivery accounts for a significant portion. To capitalise on this, Pizza Express partnered with Deliveroo in 2016 and planned to open 150 delivery sites in Britain over the next five years. Over half of the market is controlled by chains, so it’s a very competitive business.

A key factor in thriving in this market is finding ways to differentiate yourself from the chains and perhaps offering a little more in terms of service or perhaps a wider range of pizzas – innovation has been identified as a challenge, so don’t be afraid to take risks.

Identify how many pizza joints deliver in your area and how many specialise in pizzas locally. Consider establishing the following businesses:

• Their pizza selection
• Their prices
• What other food and drink items are available
• Do they charge a delivery fee, how far will they deliver, and where will they deliver
• The opening hours

Find out if they are listed on TripAdvisor – and take note of what customers like and dislike. Find out what customers have to say about the food and the service of your local pizza outlets on online takeaway portals like Just Eat and Deliveroo.

It would be worthwhile to test the services of your main competitors. The following points should be noted:

• The speed at which your order is taken
• The friendliness and helpfulness of the staff
• How long it takes for the pizza to arrive
• When it is delivered, how crisp and hot it is
• The value for money of the product

Why will customers choose your delivery service

Due to the availability of pizza at so many places, your business should offer something different – or extra – to increase your sales. You might, for instance,

• Providing gluten-free and vegetarian pizzas of very high quality
• Provide high-speed delivery services
• Deliver piping hot pizzas within a certain amount of time
• Provide customers with the option of creating their own pizzas
• The ordering process should be easy and efficient – ideally online. According to the Pizza, Pasta & Italian Food Association, more than half of pizza delivery sales are now made through digital orders, either online or via smartphone apps
• Frequently change your product ranges
• Provide catering services for children’s parties or office functions
• Provide a wide selection of side orders and desserts
• Special offers and themed promotions are available
• Sell gift vouchers

Food hygiene ratings can be accessed online by potential customers before they choose where to order food. You can reassure your customers that your food is handled and prepared hygienically if you receive a good score. The Food Standards Agency website has more information.

Location

It is very important to consider the location of your business. You should consider your business location near major residential areas even if you aren’t intending on targeting passers-by. They may want to pick up their order themselves and will not want to travel long distances.

It is ideal if your area has a large number of young, single, working people as well as plenty of students. Pizza deliveries are very likely to be ordered by this type of person.

Find out what people want

If your plan is to produce a variety of pizzas of varying prices and provide delivery service, you might consider conducting a local survey. When you open for business, you can ask people what their favourite pizza toppings are – this will help you to stock the most popular varieties.

Decide what to deliver

Your food menu and other products will need to be considered. You should be flexible once you’ve opened for business – if customers keep asking for something that you don’t deliver, then you should probably add it soon.

Insurance

A pizza delivery business in the UK may need several types of insurance to protect against potential risks and liabilities specific to the UK market. These can include public liability insurance, which covers third-party claims of bodily injury or property damage caused by the business’s operations. Employers’ liability insurance is also a legal requirement in the UK, which covers injuries or illnesses suffered by employees in connection with their work. Vehicle insurance is also important, as it covers damages or injuries caused by delivery drivers while they are on the road.

Additionally, the business may need property insurance to protect its equipment and inventory, and possibly even business interruption insurance to protect the revenue in case of unforeseen interruptions that might occur. Cyber insurance can also be important for the businesses that use online platforms for ordering and taking payments.

Read more: Is business insurance needed to deliver food

Your pizza range

Pizzas that are popular with your customers will have a variety of shapes, sizes, and toppings.

Start by deciding whether you will make the pizza bases from scratch or buy ready-made ones. Can you offer a variety of bases, such as thin, thick, deep pan, stuffed crust, French bread, or specialty breads like ciabatta?

Once you have selected the bases, you should consider the sizes you will offer, such as:

• Miniature (for example, for children’s parties)
• Small (8″ – 9″)
• Medium (12″ – 13″)
• Large (14″ – 17″)

It is also important to have a good selection of toppings. It would be possible for you to offer ten or twelve varieties of pizza and then let the customer add extras like pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, or anchovies. Customers increasingly expect to be able to decide how their food is prepared, including how they wish to customize their pizza. Some may want to make their entire pizza from scratch, while others may just want one additional item, or perhaps extra cheese.

It might be a good idea to offer daily specials, gourmet and luxury pizzas, as well as your standard pizzas.

Pizza names and varieties can be found in your local supermarket – most customers are conservative and traditional so don’t offer anything too outlandish on your standard menu. Adding more innovative lines to your menu could be done as monthly specials – if they sell well, you might add them permanently.

Make sure there are vegetarian options available. It may be a good idea to use only organic ingredients in your products. It might be a good idea to offer some healthy options, like low-fat pizzas with reduced-fat cheese toppings, as consumers become more concerned about gaining too much weight. Also consider introducing gluten-free products.

You may want to consider offering other types of pizza products, such as folded calzones and stuffed crusts.

Other food and drink items

Along with your pizzas, you may want to offer garlic bread, dough balls, chicken wings, potato wedges, coleslaw, salads or fries as side orders. There is likely to be a strong demand for canned soft drinks, as well as desserts such as cheesecake, fudge cake, brownies, apple pie, and doughnuts.

Meal deals and special offers

Meal deals and promotions are usually offered by pizza delivery specialists, and you’ll need to take advantage of them as well. If a customer collects their order, you might be able to offer them a free pizza when they pick up their order. You should make sure you make enough profit on meal deals to keep them popular with customers.

Keeping food in tip-top condition

To keep your pizzas flat and warm, consider the packaging you will buy and the insulated boxes you will transport them in, so they arrive hot and crispy. If you sell any other products, you will need appropriate packaging, so keep this in mind when calculating your costs.

Containers are generally cheaper when you order a larger quantity, so see if you can use the same container for multiple products. The same container could be used for coleslaw and pasta salad, for example.

Your delivery service

The fact that pizza is available from a variety of sources makes your delivery service very important for the success of your business. You should decide first what radius you will deliver within – for example, a radius of three or four miles – as well as how your vehicles’ drivers will be utilised most efficiently. Your per-pizza delivery cost will be lower the more orders you have on each delivery.

Whether they order over the phone, using a mobile app, or ordering online, your customers will want to be able to rely on their pizzas arriving shortly after ordering. It might be a good idea to advertise a free or low-cost phone number.

Take into account that the pizza must be made, cooked, packed, and delivered, which will add to the delivery time. It is possible for a lot of things to go wrong, including:

• When your chefs are busy, they cannot cook the pizza as soon as it is ordered
• There aren’t enough drivers – perhaps someone doesn’t show up
• When the pizzas are ready, your delivery personnel are all out
• Your drivers are delayed by traffic congestion
• You lose your drivers or they break down
• Orders are not conveniently clustered

Think about what type of delivery vehicle you will use, such as a scooter or moped, or a small van. In some cases, you might be able to use bicycles – maybe electric-assisted ones – if the area is not too large and the terrain is reasonably flat. Advertise for drivers willing to use their own business vehicles as an alternative to using your own. For each delivery, some takeaways pay local taxi and minicab firms.

If they fail to deliver within a certain time, some pizza delivery services offer a voucher for a free pizza. You will end up giving away all the profits if you take this approach!

Customer collects

Customers will collect quite a few pizzas after placing their order because you’re likely to set a minimum order value for free delivery. Consider encouraging this – it saves you the hassle and expense of delivering the order each time. It would be a good idea to target some of your special offers and meal deals at orders that will be collected.

Your opening hours

Pizza delivery outlets often operate between 4 p.m. and midnight, and on Sundays even earlier, since evening trade is more profitable. It might also be worthwhile to open at lunch if you have many nearby office buildings. From late morning until early morning, Dominos and other big pizza delivery chains deliver pizza all day.

Advertising your pizza delivery service

Your company’s services and products must be known to potential customers. Especially if you plan to locate somewhere where there won’t be much passing traffic, such as an enterprise park or retail park.

Signing up for a take-away food ordering service like Just Eat is a popular way to promote the business and attract customers. You usually have to pay a set-up fee and a commission on orders they get for you, but it can be an effective way to promote your business.

If you have a website address and a large, clearly visible telephone number, your delivery vehicle can serve as a very visible advertisement for your business. The same details should appear on all of your packaging.

Your business can also be kept in the forefront of your target customers’ minds by sending regular mailshots telling them about new products and special offers. Mailshots or leaflets are sent every week by some delivery companies to maintain customer loyalty. New menu items and special offers are often shared on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

When a customer places an order, they provide a lot of information to you, and you can use this information to improve your marketing and business efficiency. For example, you can determine when your busiest periods are so that you can ensure you have enough staff on hand. By knowing which pizzas are popular and which aren’t, you will be able to keep the right ingredients in stock and eliminate items from your menu that don’t sell well. In addition, you may be able to use the list of customer names for mailshots, such as offering loyalty incentives or letting them know about new products, subject to data protection legislation.

Consider partnering with other businesses. What if you gave local off-licences your promotional leaflets in exchange for them doing the same for you?

Pricing policy

It is very important to get the price right. Make sure your operating costs, including delivery costs and your own drawings, can be covered by the difference between the cost price of pizza and other food items ingredients and the sale price.

Nevertheless, the catering industry is highly competitive, so you should price your services in line with your immediate competitors, unless you are targeting a niche market that they don’t serve. If you plan to set up shop in an affluent area, you might consider offering up-market pizzas and other side orders. Pizzas can be baked in authentic wood-fired ovens and made from scratch, using only the best Italian cheeses, hams, salamis, and so on. There would be a significant difference in price between your products and those aimed at mass consumers.

In addition to considering how each pizza will be priced, how much you will charge for different size options (if you offer different sizes), and how much you will charge for extra toppings, you must also decide how much you will charge for extra toppings. Additionally, you will need to set prices for side orders, drinks, and other items.

Consider whether the menu prices you advertise through online ordering services like Just Eat are the same as your standard prices. In recent years, the average delivery transaction value has been unable to keep up with inflation, so take-aways often increase their prices to cover commissions charged by these services.

In order to determine if your prices will include delivery, or if you will charge extra for it, think about whether your customers will have the option to collect their orders themselves. Make a decision regarding a minimum order value – and if so, what it will be.

Special offers and discounts

Due to the high level of competition in the fast food industry, you will likely have a variety of special offers and promotions from time to time to boost sales. The slowest times of the day or week could be linked to these. You might offer a ‘meal deal’ where a customer gets a pizza, a side order, and a drink at a discounted price.

If customers spend over a certain amount, you might give them a money off voucher or free chocolates. During certain times of the day, you could offer ‘buy one, get one free’ on pizzas collected from your outlet. If you’re offering a promotional offer or deal to students, you might consider offering a student discount. You might set up a loyalty program for regular customers.

Check out your competitors’ promotions for inspiration. However, you don’t want to sell the same volumes at lower prices, you want to boost your sales

Buy an existing business

It’s not easy to start a business from scratch, but buying an existing one may be easier than you think. You’ll get all of the products and customers that are already in place with no additional work on your part!

In order to find a reputable restaurant, it’s important that you research the business. What is its food hygiene rating? Has it failed any inspections in recent months or years and if so how many points does this entail on their scorecard (1-5)? Are there specific actions taken against them by local authorities such as fines/ enforcement orders outstanding after repeated violations over time which might give an idea about what kind of reputation they’ve built themselves through poor management practices at home while running things professionally abroad).

You can’t just buy a business and expect it all to go smoothly. You need the right skills on your team, including legal & financial know-how in order for this process not only be hazardous but also expensive! So make sure that when buying any company – whether private or public — their true trading position is established with an accurate value so you’re able find out if they are really worth what we think before making our purchase decision.

Franchises

Franchises offer the best of both worlds, with all that’s required to start your own successful business right at hand. Buying into a well-established franchise will give you access not only established tools and knowledge but also name recognition which can be crucial when it comes time for customers shopping around!

There are many different franchise opportunities in the pizza delivery sector. Although they vary by detail, most feature these key points:

• As a franchise holder, you will retain your self-employment but use the identity (corporate colours and logos) of the franchisor.
• The fee should be clearly communicated in advance so there are no surprises when you receive your bill. Fees can include one-time investments like franchise fees or startup costs, but they also might come with monthly payments. Before committing to any of these expenses it’s important that the customer know what he’ll owe and how often his charge will reset based on something called “rounds.”
• The menu will probably be set by the franchisor, and you may have to buy all of your ingredients from them. A lot goes into setting up an ideal business environment for success. This includes not only what foods are going inside each dish but also how they’re cooked or prepared in order that customers stay happy with their purchase decision-making process!
• The requirements for both you and your franchisee are set out in the contract. These include fulfilling certain obligations, such as maintaining a minimum standard of performance or making sure that all information given about the company has been correct – this way no one can complain if something goes wrong later down the line.

The franchise provides you with any specialist training required, help in advertising and marketing as well advice on matters concerning your business such a range of technical issues.

The contract will outline the terms and conditions that apply to your business, including any exclusivity rights. It’s important you read through this document thoroughly so there are no surprises when it comes time for signing!

Before entering into a franchise agreement, it is important that you do your research and compare the terms of different franchisors. You should also talk with an solicitor or other legal professional such as an accountant before signing anything as this will help ensure all aspects are fully understood by both parties involved in negotiations/ contract creation

A great way to find information on franchises available is from the British Franchise Association (BFA).