Londoner's pandemic pizza startup outgrows garage, moves into grocers
Restructured out of his investment job during the pandemic, Londoner Jeff Golem really got into frozen pizza.
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Restructured out of his investment job during the pandemic, Londoner Jeff Golem really got into frozen pizza.
Not stress eating the convenient freezer staple, but launching a gourmet pizza business that started in his west London garage and has since expanded to 18 boutique grocers and markets in the region.
“Coming from the corporate world into something entirely different, I had to figure out everything. Setting up a website, reaching customers and getting the word out,” Golem said.
“I still really consider myself in start-up mode. . . . For my wife and our family, it’s very different than what life was like before, but there’s also so much excitement and freedom and flexibility.”
Golem, a father of two and the owner of Pizza Club, is now making about 2,500 frozen pizzas a month out of his industrial kitchen in east London, a space he shares with La Noisette Bakery, which recently closed its Oxford Street café to pursue its wholesale business.
He and his eight-person team are trying to grow aggressively, getting their gourmet pizzas into more area stores, freezers and bellies.
“We’ve added eight new retailers in the last eight months and tripled our staff,” he said. “We’re looking to add some more equipment to speed up production. . . . We’re also hoping to expand into Kitchener-Waterloo.”
Golem said pizza-making always has been a “creative outlet” for him, long before it became his full-time job. When he launched his business, Golem wanted his pizza to be distinct from the mass-produced, frequently inexpensive frozen pizza in grocery stores.
Drawing inspiration from some high-profile Toronto pizzerias that started offering frozen pies during the height of the pandemic, Pizza Club was born – first in his garage, then in a shared industrial kitchen in Komoka, and now on Osler Street.
The business started with subscription, direct-to-customer sales but has since carved out a new niche for itself, Golem said.
“For a small- to medium-sized grocery store, bakery or butcher shop, they’re really didn’t exist a pizza product that those kinds of places would be selling,” Golem said, adding they’re unlikely to stock the national brand frozen pizza you’d find at a grocery chain.
“They want something that’s made with quality ingredients, that’s made locally.”
The price point is higher on Pizza Club’s creations. The kinds of ingredients on its pies – including local meats and unusual picks, such as pistachios and pickles – separate it from the frozen pizza pack too.
Golem said he’s always on the lookout for new collaborations with local businesses and suppliers. He approached B.J.’s Country Market, a Delaware butcher shop that specializes in brisket, and a brisket pizza was born.
Golem sees demand for high-quality, quick-and-easy frozen pizza growing.
“My brother-in-law, who’s also my accountant and business advisor, texted me and said ‘What if the gourmet frozen pizza business is where craft breweries were 10 to 15 years ago?’ Consumers saw an opportunity to pay more for something superior or different or local,” he said.
“I see that as something that’s happening in the food or pizza business. For a long time it was about getting a convenience meal for as cheap as possible at the grocery store. But now there’s an appetite for something that’s better and locally made.”
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