adminBrighton Gumbo Business Reporter
TWO Bulawayo entrepreneurs have invented a mobile wood-fired pizza oven named Pizza Events with a capacity of producing 75 pizzas per hour. Business Chronicle met the innovative business partners, Newman Sibanda and Nomagugu Dube, who operate Slice Pizzeria fastfood outlet at Corner 12th Avenue and Fife Street in the central business district.
Dube, a director in the firm, said the innovation was inspired by the desire to have an authentic wood-fired pizza plant that can be operated anywhere, anytime.
She said the equipment offers a unique cooking environment with a fantastic experience that enables customers to smell and see the classic scene of a wood-fired oven while enjoying traditional thin crust wood-fired pizza. “People need to know the original way of making pizza, which is why we came up with this idea of the mobile wood-fired pizza oven to give our customers that natural taste as they watch,” said Dube.
“With our mobile authentic mobile wood-fired oven we arrive at customers’ location, prepare and bake delicious pizza, fresh and hot right out of the oven, in front of them.”
Dube said the innovation was cost effective as it does not attract rentals and purchase of electricity for it to function. The duo spent about $7,500 assembling the plant. Dube said when the interior of the mobile wood-fired oven becomes “extremely” hot as a result of heat circulating around the dome-shaped cap (shown in picture), the exterior remains cold.
“Heat radiated out from the heat source (firewood), is spread around the oven, and ultimately absorbed by the interior brick walls,” she explained. “This heat radiates across the dome very evenly while the floor of the oven remains slightly cooler and the temperature outside wall remaining unchanged.”
The pizza oven is located on a lightweight, easy-to-tow trailer. Dube said with the ongoing load shedding in the country, their business was not affected as the oven was powered by the heat from firewood.
She said the targeted customers were individuals, schools having trips, weddings and birthdays among others from around the country. “For customers coming anywhere around Bulawayo we only charge them using our menu prices, they’ll not have to pay us for transport as we travel to their respective places,” said Dube.
“Those coming from other places, which are not Bulawayo, we negotiate. If they propose to pay for fuel or pay us in cash we don’t mind as long as we manage to get to their places.”
She said the fastfood outlet was working on other three similar innovations, which they expect to complete next year and showcase during the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair.
The new facility was officially launched last Saturday at a colourful function that was attended by several businesspeople and top government officials.
Online Reporter