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Volume 21 Issue 7 December 2015

12 BACK TO YOUR ROOTS

Using seasonal vegetables to make a hearty winter pizza

16 PIZZA PARTY

Operators hit the Canadian Pizza Show floor this fall to make connections, be inspired and just plain have fun

20 OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

Alberta chain Buster’s Pizza turned a chance encounter into a way to bring families together

DEPARTMENTS 10

COVER: The Combine in Simcoe, Ont., makes a pizza featuring celeriac root white sauce. Read about this winter pie and other root vegetable pizzas starting on page 12.

www.canadianpizzamag.com

editor’s desk

pizza bites

the pizza chef

marketing insights

making dough

pizza on fire DECEMBER 2015 pizza 3

“Packed from Fresh Tomatoes, Not from Concentrate”...

President Tom Cortopassi (kneeling) and “Coach” Dino Cortopassi (standing) in one of our

Since 1942, our Restaurateur customers’ success has depended on the superior taste of the food they serve and of our products. As a family-owned business, it feels good knowing that so many of our customers have relied on our “Packed From Fresh Tomato” products from generation to generation.

Whether your restaurant has a long family history, or whether you’re the founder, you can depend on our family making the best “Real Italian” tomato products...always Packed From Fresh Tomatoes, Never From Concentrate...generation after generation!

Tom Cortopassi President/Owner

Dino Cortopassi Coach/Owner

Generation after Generation.

tomato fields in Stanislaus County, California

THE

StaniSlauS E

O F

Q U

The “Real Italian” Tomato Company 1202 “D” Street

from the editor’s desk December 2015, Vol. 21, No. 7

Invisible value

Managing Editor Laura Aiken laiken@annexweb.com 416-522-1595 Editor Colleen Cross ccross@annexweb.com 519-428-3471 ext. 261

e at Canadian Pizza are tweaking our staff roles. Laura Aiken has moved into the position of managing editor, and I am thrilled to take on the role of editor. Laura has been serving the Canadian pizza industry since 2008 and those who know her upbeat presence and keen eye for issues that concern you will be pleased to know she remains a vital part of our team. We look forward to helping you find the tools and information you need, improve your bottom line, and we are excited about horizons near and far: among these Saputo Foodservice’s Pizza with Purpose contest, which closes Dec. 31 (hint, hint), a close look at trends affecting the pizza industry and a week-long focus on the perfect crust. A happy day spent with operators at our recent Canadian Pizza Show reminded us that Canadian pizza makers justly take a lot of pride in their product. I hesitate to use the word product because I suspect many of you don’t label it that way. After all, it is your lovingly handcrafted, one-of-a-kind creation and the result of uncountable hours of experimentation, trial and error and more than a few necessary quality-control taste tests. But call it a product I do – if only to emphasize that while you are selling something so tangible that appeals to the senses and is made from quality ingredients, it also represents invisible elements like creativity, hard work and time away from family. And your customers need to value those intangible costs in a very tangible way by paying a fair price for the quality pizza they are getting. That truth can get lost in the business process when pizzaiolos take their talents for granted. Make sure you price your product to reflect its true value and remind customers your pizza is worth that and more. Pizzaiolos don’t set out to sell themselves short, but sometimes they do. Michelle Brisebois’ thoughtful column about the dark side of offering complimentary meals (see page

6 pizza DECEMBER 2015

18) encourages pizzeria operators to step outside their product and see it for the valuable commodity it is. Just as you need your customers to value the invisible work that goes into your product, so you need to prioritize the invisible tasks that don’t always yield obvious or immediate results. One of these intangibles is great customer service. Jeff Dover, in his seminar at the show, provided tips on how to ensure customers get more than they expected from you. People make decisions about what and where to eat largely based on emotion, he said. What they remember most is how they felt the last time they ordered your pizza or walked through your door, and that feeling results from how staff greeted them, saw to their needs and handled problems that came up. So don’t lose sight of invisibles like service, promotion and pizza-making skills that go into your pizza and your business: they are as important to your bottom line as the flavours and textures and quality that keeps your customers clamouring for more.

…

On behalf of the Canadian Pizza Show team, I’d like to extend a sincere thankyou to our generous show sponsors Saputo Foodservice; PizzaMaster distributed by Alfa Food Service; Stanislaus; and Dairy Farmers of Canada. Heartfelt thanks also go to Saputo Foodservice and Moretti Forni distributed by Euro-Milan for sponsoring the Chef of the Year competitions, which grew by leaps and bounds this year. Last but by no means least, thank you to our exhibitors, speakers, judges and pizzeria operators, whose participation and feedback made the annual event a pleasure to host. May you all have a productive, joyous Christmas season and a prosperous 2016!

@CdnPizzaMag

Publisher Christine Livingstone clivingstone@annexweb.com 519-429-5173 888-599-2228 ext. 239 Account Coordinator Shannon Drumm sdrumm@annexweb.com 888-599-2228, ext. 219 Media Designer Jaime Ratcliffe Circulation Manager Anita Madden amadden@annexbizmedia.com 416-442-5600 ext 3596 Group Publisher Martin McAnulty mmcanulty@annexweb.com Director of Soul/COO Sue Fredericks Mailing Address P.O. Box 530, 105 Donly Dr. S., Simcoe, ON N3Y 4N5 PUBLICATION MAIL AGREEMENT #40065710 Printed in Canada ISSN 1203-6838 Published seven times per year (Jan/Feb, Apr/May, Jun, Jul/Aug, Sept/Oct, Nov, Dec) by Annex Business Media Circulation email: mchana@annexbizmedia.com Tel: 416-510-5109 Fax: 416-510-5170 Mail: 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto, ON M3B 2S9 Subscription Rates Canada – 1 Year $ 19.00 (+ applicable tax) Best pricing (Can/USA/foreign) available online at www.canadianpizzamag.com Occasionally, Canadian Pizza Magazine will mail information on behalf of industry-related groups whose products and services we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive this information, please contact our circulation department in any of the four ways listed above.

Annex Privacy Officer privacy@annexbizmedia.com Tel: 800-668-2374 No part of the editorial content of this publication may be reprinted without the publisher’s written permission. ©2015 Annex Publishing and Printing Inc. All rights reserved. Opinions expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or the publisher. No liability is assumed for errors or omissions. All advertising is subject to the publisher’s approval. Such approval does not imply any endorsement of the products or services advertised. Publisher reserves the right to refuse advertising that does not meet the standards of the publication. www.canadianpizzamag.com

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pizzabites Saputo Pizza with Purpose award up for grabs

aputo Foodservice once again is sponsoring its Pizza with Purpose award to celebrate and reward all you pizza operators who are out in your community doing good things. We want to hear about your fundraising, sponsorship, participation in community events and creative contributions. Activities can be local or national in scope. The winner won’t be determined simply by the amount of money raised, but on all the ways your pizzeria is touching lives. Nominate your pizzeria and you could win $2,500 and a profile in Canadian Pizza magazine to help spread the goodwill. • Visit www.canadianpizzamag.com/pizza-with-purpose-award for details.

Domino’s launches customized pizza-delivery vehicles omino’s is launching the DXP, a specially designed and built pizza delivery vehicle with an illuminated warming oven that aims to make delivery easier for drivers and more efficient. The DXP, which Domino’s calls the “Delivery Expert,” is the brainchild of former GM R&D executive Kenneth R. Baker, Michigan-based Roush Enterprises and Domino’s. Hundreds of concepts were initially identified in an online crowdsourcing design competition hosted by Local Motors. “The Domino’s DXP is the first purpose-built vehicle aimed at revolutionizing pizza delivery,” said Russell Weiner, president of Domino’s USA, in a news release. “This innovation allows drivers to do their jobs with greater ease and efficiency, and demonstrates that Domino’s is absolutely fanatical about making perfect deliveries.” The design and production of the Domino’s DXP started with a five-stage crowdsourcing competition hosted by Local Motors, on the company’s open innovation platform called Open IO. The contest, called the Domino’s Ultimate Delivery Vehicle Challenge, fielded 385 entries from designers around the world. Then, Roush and Baker adapted the concept and worked closely with Domino’s to transform the Chevrolet Spark into a delivery vehicle for pizza and other menu items. The illuminated warming oven located behind the driver’s door and storage areas are designed for easy loading and unloading of pizzas and other menu items. The oven can hold two Heatwave bags and is quickly accessible to drivers through a key fob. The interior of the DXP includes both front and rear storage areas and features a non-slip, easy-to-clean surface to stabilize items during delivery. •

8 pizza DECEMBER 2015

the pizza chef

Hiring systems Diana Cline

he young man says to me, “I’m the kinda guy that likes to see jobs getting done. I’ll look around for things to do and I just do them, you don’t have to ask.” He looks me in the eye and tells me, “My work ethic tends to motivate other people too.” Sounds impressive – in fact, exactly what I want to hear. This young man is just the kind of personality we’re looking for to join our busy pizzeria, and I hire him on the spot. Unfortunately, a completely different person shows up for his actual on-the-job performance. Other staff complain that this guy liked to stand around and watch them work. Managers tell me he will find a seat on any horizontal surface. Any horizontal surface. And I witness it myself. Over and over we’ve seen this pattern repeated: a stellar job interview, a hire followed by a less-than-adequate performance. At first, we were at a loss to understand the complete disconnect between how these people represented themselves in the interview and how they turned out to be in reality. It’s true that some people want jobs but don’t actually want to work; however, it was getting more and more difficult to identify those candidates during the interview. They were, for lack of a better description, well rehearsed. We began to call them Academy Award interview performances. You’ve all had them, no doubt. You thought a new hire was going to work out great, take some of the load off, and then – wham – you get a dose of reality before their first paycheque is issued. Some say it’s the cost of doing business, but training is expensive. And training someone who doesn’t really want to work is even more expensive. Add to that the danger of someone like that providing a terrible experience for one of your customers and you are playing a game

10 pizza DECEMBER 2015

stacked against you, my friend. Once you discover that you’ve had an Academy Award interview performance and a slacker shows up for training, you can and definitely should let the slacker go. No reason to keep an actor on the payroll, unless of course you have dinner theatre. I mean, when someone looks you in the eye and tells you something about themselves that is completely false, how are you to know? Sure there are reference checks, and one should always follow up with a call to the listed references, but what about those young people with no previous experience and no references. To identify the good employees from the bad, we created a hiring system. We don’t accept resumés. We don’t have the standard application forms that you can buy at an office supply store. These aren’t important in our industry. Our industry is labour intensive and if you’re the kind of person who likes to “hardly work” instead of “work hard,” then we have a fundamental problem. We needed to create a hiring system to weed out these convincing actors from the interview process. We needed a system to discourage them from getting to the interview. Here is what we did: we wrote three pages about what an employee can expect from our company and what, in turn, we expect from them. We wrote a little about our company, who we are, our goals in the community and in business. Buried in these three pages is a phone number to call to schedule an interview. Attached to these pages are four more pages of requested information from the applicant. We call this our application kit. When someone walks in and asks if they can drop off a resumé, we give them an application kit with the following directions:

“Take this home, read it and then fill it out. If you have a resumé, staple it to the back. When you’re finished filling it out, inside there’s a number to call to schedule an interview.” If the next thing they ask is for a pen, we’ll give them one, but their application kit is flagged “not considered” because they ignored the very first instructions we gave them. If they can’t follow the simplest of directions, the very first set of directions we give, then how successful will their training be? This person is showing you what you can expect from them on the job. Pay attention: this step alone can save you tons of money and grief. Here’s the best part. For every 10 application kits that we hand out, eight never come back. That means eight out of 10 people think that reading three pages and filling out another four is too much work to get a job at my company. But the truth is, if those people think that’s too much work, then working in our industry is way over their threshold. And we need to know that before we begin their training at $11 an hour, before we give them a uniform, add them to payroll, etc., etc. Ideally, we need to know before we bring them in for an interview – or else we’d need a full-time interviewer. Any business is only as strong as its weakest employee and every business needs a system to separate the actors and the slackers from the doers and the workers. • Diana Cline is a two-time Canadian Pizza magazine Chef of the Year, internationally recognized gourmet pizzaiolo, owner of Diana’s Cucina & Lounge in Winnipeg, Man., and a director for the CRFA (now Restaurants Canada) from 2009-2013. In addition to creating award-winning recipes, Diana is also a consultant to other pizzeria owner/operators in menu development, creating systems to run a pizzeria on autopilot, along with marketing and positioning to help operators grow their business effectively and strategically. She is available for consulting on a limited basis. For more information contact her at dianaslcline@gmail.com.

feature

Back to your roots Using root and seasonal vegetables to create a hearty winter’s pizza BY COLLEEN CROSS

ith winter well underway, you sweet vegetables with “icier,” or savoury, may be looking for ways to ones, she says. The trick to keeping toppings light is to deliver a heartier winter pizza to hungry hibernators. One shred or cube them evenly, she notes. The fun and relatively painless way to switch Farmers Market, their most popular pizza, up your seasonal menu is to incorporate features three-herb pesto and goat cheese flavourful, versatile and easy-to-store root on a thin layer of organic tomato sauce. She suggests keeping the cheese light as vegetables into your pie. Rocky Mountain Flatbread of Vancouver well. They use mozzafina, which is a lighter has been turned on to the benefits of using type of mozzarella akin to goat cheese but root vegetables for some time now. Owner less crumbly. Depending on customer reSuzanne Fielden says she and her staff use quests, they sometimes use no cheese at all. Rocky Mountain uses produce from seasonal vegetables such as celeriac root, carrots and beets on their Farmers Market local suppliers whenever possible and recently have been working with a purchaspizza. They often shred the vegetables and add ing hub run through the Vancouver farmers them directly as toppings. Another method market out of Richmond, B.C., where they buy vegetables twice a week. they employ is to season The restaurant also inand soften the vegetables corporates “fire-roasted” beforehand with a mixture ‘We take the vegetables such as garlic of salt, pepper and olive oil. ugly and make pieces, rutabagas and zucThis creates a nice carchini into their pizzas as amelizing effect,” Fielden it beautiful.’ – well as butternut squash – says. During the summer, Ryan Rivard, The with cranberries – around Thanksgiving. they switch up the vegeCombine “It’s all about seasoning table toppings to rhubarb, and not being afraid to inheirloom tomatoes and clude root vegetables,” she other vegetables available says. locally during that season. Ryan Rivard, executive Root vegetables are a great choice at Thanksgiving and into fall and chef at The Combine restaurant in Simcoe, winter, when there is more limited choice in Ont., is so committed to using fresh, local vegetables, he and Jennifer von Schleinitz, vegetables, she says. To balance flavours, they try to blend his wife and business partner, cultivated a

12 pizza DECEMBER 2015

Rocky Mountain Flatbread’s Farmers Market pizza features rotating seasonal vegetables. The beets, radishes and butternut squash and chives seen on this version were grown in the company’s greenhouse in its back parking lot, says co-owner Suzanne Fielden. Photo courtesy Rocky Mountain Flatbread

Root inspiration Fleshy, edible underground roots or tubers can provide inspiration for your pizza during the winter months when fresh vegetables are hard to come by. Here are a few to consider when you want to give your pizza a comfort-food twist this winter. • • • •

beet carrot celeriac, or celery root Jerusalem artichoke

• parsnip • potato

garden behind their home and restaurant. The Combine, which specializes in fine dining fare with a strong emphasis on local, features pizza baked in a specially designed handmade brick oven on Tuesday nights. With a garden out back, staff have a variety of fresh vegetables at their disposal during the colder months. Rivard and his team build an apple bacon cheddar onion pizza on a foundation of white cream sauce flavoured with celeriac root. “Instead of a béchamel we use celeriac as the basis for our white sauce,” Rivard says. They call it the Norfolk ABC for the county where The Combine is located and the elements are all locally sourced, from the aged cheddar to the smoked bacon to the celeriac root right out of the garden. They cut the bulky, round, brownish root into small cubes and let it simmer at a low temperature, adding the cream and salt. “We take the ugly and make it beautiful,” he says. They also like to use caramelized onions and deep-fried shallots and carrots as garnishes, Rivard says. The notion of a casual pub “wing night” inspired a limited-run Buffalo Chicken Pizza featuring celeriac cream, crumbly blue cheese, and shaved celery and the crispy carrots on top. Because in his case root vegetables are readily available, Rivard sees no down side to using them. “We do have to make sure we get the correct amount of seasoning to give the roots enough flavour,” he said. Potatoes showed up as toppings on several pizzas in the Canadian Pizza magazine Chef of the Year competitions in October. Vito Dacchille of Enoteca Mozza Pizzeria Moderna in Laval, Que., presented Pizza Farmaiale, which he called “a hearty pizza for brisk fall nights or long dark

• • • •

radish salsify sweet potato turnip

• taro root (cocoyam, dasheen) • yam

winter days.” It featured porchetta marinated with Nduja, roasted potatoes with rosemary and extra virgin olive oil, and mascarpone cream cheese. Champion of Champions Carlo Raillo’s pumpkin pie pizza featured buffalo mozzarella followed by a combination of mascarpone, ricotta and boiled potato on top of the dough before it went into the oven. Chef of the Year Joe Leroux incorporated sliced rosemary potatoes as a topping on his winning pie, along with hickory-smoked bacon and red onions. Besides having great nutritional properties like the beta carotene found in carrots root vegetables have “great storability,” says Kevin Schooley, an independent management consultant associated with Farmers’ Markets Ontario who closely follows trends and new varieties. “And these days the dynamic colours of beets and carrots ranging from yellow to purple make them visually appealing,” Schooley says. Some adventurous customers like to try vegetables such as salsify that originate in foreign soils, he says. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs looks at the potential of specific vegetables to grow in Canadian soil and places like the Vineland Research Centre in the Niagara region are always running trials and trying to learn which vegetables can be grown on Canadian soil. “Wherever there is a demand, people will find a way to get hold of them,” he says. Whether your customers are longing for comfort food or hungry for new adventures in taste and texture, working root vegetables into your sauce base or toppings rotation is one inexpensive and risk-free way to sustain them over another Canadian winter. •

DECEMBER 2015 pizza 13

E H T R O F T N E V E E H

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feature

Pizza Party Operators hit the Canadian Pizza Show floor this fall to make connections, be inspired and just plain have fun BY COLLEEN CROSS

anadian Pizza magazine’s annual pizza party, held Oct. 19 at the International Centre in Mississauga, Ont., provided a trifecta of attractions: a trade show tailored to the pizza industry, an educational program aimed squarely at helping operators thrive and a competition stage that delivered on excitement. MAKING CONNECTIONS The trade show featured hardware like ovens, cookware, peels, brushes and pizza boxes; consumable products like tomatoes, meats, cheese, flour and yeast; and services like promotion, franchising and digital advertising. Attendees perused the aisles for products and services to help them run their pizza businesses more efficiently and brainstormed with exhibitors about how to tackle issues they encounter. Food consultant Jane Dummer took questions about making healthier pizza at the Canadian Pizza Show booth. Several operators showed interest in using healthier toppings like spinach, Dummer said.

INTANGIBLES CAN BOLSTER YOUR BOTTOM LINE Operators looking for further inspiration participated in several lively seminars that highlighted strategies – some of them based on intangible things like customer service – for boosting your bottom line. “Big Dave” Ostrander, a consultant known by many as “The Pizza Doctor” and a popular speaker at Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, opened the day’s session by giving operators some

16 pizza DECEMBER 2015

friendly straight talk about managing their pizza costs. Ostrander urged pizzeria operators to make getting a handle on food costs a priority. He encouraged them to get an accurate digital scale and to stop free-throwing their cheese. He encouraged them to “be a portion-control fanatic.” Cheese portion-control cups, spoodles or portioning spoons and accurate scales are essential tools to help you do this, he said, as he demonstrated portioning methods. Pizzas should be portioned by the square inch, not by their diameter, so you need to know how many square inches each pizza measures. For example, one 10inch pizza is 78.5 square inches, he said. Because a 14-inch pizza is 154 square inches and the 10-inch pizzas together are 157 square inches, the amount of cheese used for each order option is almost identical, he said, noting that most customers will go for 10-inch pizzas because that sounds like a better deal. As for determining pricing, Ostrander had this simple advice: “If you don’t know your costs, you can’t control them,” he said. “Cost your menu. Build every pizza on the scale. You may find the results shocking.” You can sell your pizza at more or less than 10 per cent and you should plan for that, he recommended. The new purchasing model is all about partnering, Ostrander said. “The best relationships are built on trust,” he said, recommending operators ask themselves how they can reduce their distributor’s service load – what it costs them to service your restaurant – pay your supplier on time and never lie.

Giorgio Taverniti, who owns and operates Frank’s Pizza House in Toronto, shared how social media marketing strategies – and the control they put in the hands of business operators – have worked for him. “Now we can compete with the big guys,” Taverniti said. “No chain of command is needed.” A strong presence on social media is something you have to have, Taverniti said. He said he spends serious time – two hours in the morning, two to three hours at night – posting and responding to online posts, but it yields him tons of feedback. Taverniti described some impressive results. He has seen the business grow by 20 per cent since focusing on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to promote the brand. Frank’s Pizza House has 3,800 followers, but what’s important is the content he shares – from pictures of his pizzas to questions about customers’ preferences. He has almost eliminated his advertising budget since changing his marketing focus to social media. The pizzeria is so busy staff are obliged to turn away some orders on Fridays and Saturdays. Last August they closed

for vacation for the entire month – tangible proof the strategy is working for them. Avoid “sales-y” talk, Taverniti told the audience, adding that pictures of pizza get the best response from followers. Testing the waters online before adding new products to your regular menu also can pay off, he added. Making good customer service a priority is another strategy that yields returns, said Jeff Dover, a foodservice consultant and principal with fsSTRATEGY. The emphasis on excellence in customer service must come from the top down and be fully supported, Dover said. Treating customers well has a positive impact on guests, employees and makes financial sense, he said. It makes sense to keep the customers you have happy, because it costs five times as much to get a new customer as it does to keep an old one, he said. Choosing to give your business to someone is an emotional decision, he said, and the best employees are those who are good with people and personalize their service. Dover encouraged operators to hire for

personality and to give someone a chance if you think they will engage people. “You can teach cash register; you can’t teach nice,” he said. The Red Lobster chain, which has come up from the United States to have great success in Canada, provides a good example of strong customer service: they have a staff member stand at the door on rainy days and walk people to and from the restaurant under their umbrella. This makes a great impression and can be adapted to other weather conditions such as providing scrapers and snow brushes in the winter. What does good customer service mean to your restaurant? A person who visits a restaurant twice a month is worth $5,000 over 10 years – $75,000 to $150,000 if you include potential recommendations that customer may make to friends and family. “When you look at it that way, he said, “every phone call represents $150,000 in business.” He encouraged operators to create a unique experience for customers. “Remember, you are selling “wow,” he said.

Main: Giuseppe Cortinovis’ vegetarian pie featuring Einkorn flour and fresh figs earned him the runner-up status in the Chef of the Year Open division. Above: Choosing to give your business to someone is an emotional decision, Jeff Dover said in his session on customer service, and the best employees are those who personalize their service. Below: Antonio Rupolo of Gusto Pizzeria in Brampton, Ont., was all smiles as Moretti Forni’s Joe DiDonato presented him with Canadian Pizza magazine’s first Junior Chef of the Year award.

Continued on page 22

DECEMBER 2015 pizza 17

marketing insights

No free lunch Michelle Brisebois

magine pulling up to a gas station and discovering the pump you’ve chosen is out of service or that you have to wait your turn. Perhaps the receipt printer was broken. Maybe you work for the gas station and have been a loyal employee for years. Would any of these circumstances prompt you to expect the gas station to say, “So sorry, that tank of gas is on us. Yep, that $60 worth of petrol is free and clear and our way of acknowledging our error”? The notion seems ridiculous. Yet across the foodservice sector, it’s commonplace to “comp” – provide a complimentary meal or experience – because a patron feels something wasn’t quite up to their standards. It’s also common to give employees free food and experiences as rewards. While it may be unfair to compare procuring a tank of gas with a dining event, the need to control costs begs us to examine this ritual more closely. When it comes to keeping employees and customers happy, is our commitment to the fine art of hospitality killing us? Many large companies carve off a portion of their budget for “promotional activity.” Advertising is often budgeted for separately and used for outbound activities such as ads, posters and digital marketing initiatives. Promotional activity differs from advertising in that it’s more situational and used to court key decision makers. It’s a way of accounting for pricing flexibility, sales, giveaways, and for those times when giving something away for free will help pave the way to a larger sale. For many businesses with products that command a high profit margin, giving away product doesn’t impact the bottom line significantly. If you sell coffee where a cup retails for hundreds of times more than it costs, free product means you’re out a few cents.

18 pizza DECEMBER 2015

Restaurants buy ingredients, create a consumable food item and serve or deliver the food for consumption. The costs incurred in that process are fairly substantial related to the price paid by the end user, so restaurant profit margins are typically low. Giving away product means you are giving away the labour involved in making and delivering the product too. It’s a big deal. Free product may be given to either employees or customers. There are ways to be smart about how you administer both of these streams. Employees often work long and unpredictable hours in the hospitality industry and providing employee meals is a nice benefit. It helps them experience the food first hand and will help them sell it to customers who have questions about what menu items taste like. The key is to plan for this and control how it’s administered. Many restaurants offer a staff discount for employees to dine while working or to come in as customers. If they are eating while working, make a batch of something for everyone to share rather than individual meals made to order. If staff come in to dine on their own time, you can offer them a discount of 20 or 25 per cent up to a group size of your choosing. Be diligent about the rules around this and insist that the employee be present to allow the discount. Otherwise, you may find every one of their friends and relatives comes in demanding the staff discount. The hospitality industry is notorious for giving discounts and freebies to people who work at other establishments. This is a drain on your resources and your profit. Don’t be part of the vicious cycle. Giving customers a free meal is often a defensive play. There are times when it is perfectly appropriate to allow a customer not to pay. However, those times should be

few and far between. If the meal was not cooked properly or found to be unsatisfactory, it should be replaced. If the diner is consuming the meal in your restaurant, make sure your servers are checking in early on to ask if everything is acceptable. A customer who says everything is OK during the table check and then decides at the end of the meal that they didn’t like the food is probably gaming the system. If you Google “how to get stuff for free” you will find entire chat rooms devoted to ways to complain about food just to get it cleared off the bill. It may seem counterintuitive to explain that you aren’t going to comp the meal even though a customer claims to be dissatisfied, but if you take this step your business won’t be known as an easy target. It’s hard to hold your ground when a customer gets blustery but don’t give away freebies to make a problem go away. If the customer complains after they are delivered or take away the food, it’s harder to do that check-in around quality. Having a next-order-free policy may make a lot of sense, but it’s important to have controls around it. Otherwise, anyone can call up and say they are owed a free meal. Take a name and number and keep a ledger or enter it into the customer field in your point-of-sale system. People who game the system will learn you have a process to track the freebies and be less inclined to target you. Free product means you worked for no money in return. Look for ways to do an end run around situations where giving product away is the only way out. It just may be the most profitable decision you’ll make all year. • Michelle Brisebois is a marketing professional with experience in the food, pharmaceutical and financial services industries. She specializes in brand strategies.

2014 Winner The Kitchens of The Pizza Mill

Put Your

on our cover

The Pizza Mill Winners of the Foodservice Piz Saputo za With Purpose Award

ARE YOU MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN YOUR COMMUNITY? Nominate your pizzeria for the Pizza with Purpose Award sponsored by Saputo Foodservice and share the spirit of generosity with your fellow pizzaiolos.

PIZZAAPRMAY15.indd

2015-04-22

We want to hear about your fundraising, sponsorship, participation in community events and creative contributions. Activities can be local or national in scope. The winner won’t be determined just on an amount of money raised, but on all the ways, big and small, that your pizzeria is touching lives.

12:00 PM

You could win $2,500 and a profile story on your pizzeria in Canadian Pizza magazine to help spread the goodwill!

The Pizza with Purpose award sponsored by

Enter online at www.canadianpizzamag.com or email: ccross@annexweb.com

2015 Entry Deadline: Dec. 31! Pizza_Purpose_Saputo Dec 15.indd 1

2015-11-12 10:02 AM

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Opportunity knocks Alberta chain Buster’s Pizza turned a chance encounter into a way to bring families together BY TONY PALERMO

uster’s Pizza, Donair & Pasta CEO Akeed Salame has fond memories of working at his parent’s pizzeria as a child. “I can remember being around seven or eight years old, and going straight to the shop after school with my brothers and sisters to make pizza boxes and help out at the restaurant,” Salame says. “It wasn’t straight home or to the babysitter for us. It was to the restaurant. Thinking back about it brings back great memories.” Salame continued working in the restaurant business and at the age of 19, owned a Keg restaurant inside the Key West Inn in Devon, Alta. From the same kitchen, he operated a pizza joint, Key West 2-for-1, later selling that business to open another pizza and family steakhouse in Redwater, Alta. A few years later, Salame decided to sell that business as well and take some time off. A chance encounter Pizza always a remained a passion for Salame and opening his next location happened quite by chance; a previous customer from his restaurant in Devon was the leasing manager of an Edmonton-area shopping centre and invited Salame to open a pizzeria in the mall. “You’re the best pizza operator I know,” he told Salame. “I have just the place for you. I’m sure you’ll know what to do with it.” Interested, Salame stepped outside of the mall and noticed a Blockbuster video store. The large blue sign with yellow lettering always caught his attention. Looking at the sign, Salame rolled the Blockbuster name over in his head and then everything hit him – he was going to open a pizzeria and call it Buster’s. Buster’s Pizza. It had a nice ring to it that inspired and excited him. From the very start,

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Akeed and Magdalena Salame together have built a thriving pizza business in Alberta. Support is crucial to success in any venture, Akeed says. Photo courtesy Buster’s Pizza, Donair & Pasta.

Salame knew that he would seek out and use the best quality of ingredients, making everything fresh in house. He would perfect the menu and deliver a product that, in his own words, “would bring families together” as he had witnessed pizza do for generations of families while working as a kid at his parents’ pizzeria and later at his own businesses. In 2001, realizing a dream through a chance encounter, Salame opened up the first Buster’s Pizza in Edmonton’s Millwood district. Salame says franchising out was something he wanted to do, but slowly. “My parents always told me to climb a ladder one step at a time to reach the top – and that if you climb too fast you can fall,” Salame says. But as the success and popularity of Buster’s Pizza grew, he had customers wanting to open a Buster’s location of their own. When the right employee came along, he decided

to franchise out. “I knew how they worked, and felt that they’d really do well with it. So, at that point, franchising Buster’s became an opportunity for the both of us,” he says. “Buster’s was a brand that I built up so it was hard to even think about entrusting it to someone else,” he explains. “But I liked this employee, knew how they worked, and felt that they’d really do well with it. So, at that point, franchising Buster’s became an opportunity for the both of us.” In 2004, the second location opened as a franchise and Salame says things just took off from there. Three more locations opened in 2006, and the growth just kept happening year after year to its current size of 14 Buster’s Pizza’s spread out across Alberta including Fort Saskatchewan, Red Deer, and several locations in the Edmonton area. While the decision to franchise out has been a great opportunity for his family, Salame cautions that it’s not a decision to take

lightly. He says owners need to do their re- success, and that’s why he consistently monsearch and be sure of whom they’re picking itors the product coming out of each of the restaurant’s locations. Even now, each store to help carry the brand. “You give the operator the system but it’s uses the freshest of ingredients, cuts its own meats and makes everything really the operator who will in store. make that store work,” SalSalame says he has his ame explains. “It’s crucial to Salame says eye on opening other locapick the right people. When franchising out tions in Alberta, including you know someone – have Calgary, and also expanding worked with them – you was something across the country to B.C., know how they operate, how dedicated and passion- he wanted to do, Saskatchewan and Ontario. “One step at a time,” he ate they are, and that makes but slowly. says. it easier to judge whether In addition to pizza and they’ll help continue and carpasta, Buster’s Pizza offers ry the brand you worked so donairs and donair pizza. hard to develop.” When you know someone – have worked The specialty item, popular both on Canawith them – you know how they operate, da’s east coast and in the west, typically feahow dedicated and passionate they are, and tures seasoned, thinly sliced lamb, chicken that makes it easier to judge whether they’ll or beef. The menu includes donairs with help continue and carry the brand you lettuce, tomato and onion, with tzatziki dill sauce or sweet sauce and wrapped in warm worked so hard to develop, Salame says. Quality and consistency are two other pita bread, and donair meat as a custom areas Salame says are crucial to a brand’s pizza topping.

Salame plans on incorporating more from his Lebanese-Mediterranean background and is currently working on perfecting a shawarma recipe – something he expects they will be offering on the menu in mid-to-late 2016. Family continues to play an important role in Salame’s life. His own children now go to the shop to help make pizza boxes and learn valuable skills and values, just at Salame did years before. And, Salame says that a huge part of Busters’ success is the support he has had from his wife, Magdalena, who he says fell into the pizza business but has been with him every step of the way. Support, says Salame, is another crucial part of success in any venture, business or pursuit. “Family or whomever, you need to surround yourself with loving, supportive people,” Salame says. • For more profiles, visit www.canadianpizzamag.com

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Chef of the Year Joe Leroux presents his winning pizza to judges as Laura Aiken emcees.

Continued from page 17 Marketing is another of those intangible things that can drastically affect a pizzeria’s bottom line. In a lively afternoon panel discussion, Ostrander, Taverniti and Marina Rondinelli talked frankly about what strategies have and haven’t worked. Rondinelli, the former owner of Rondo’s Pizza Plus in Bright’s Grove, Ont., who now consults for the industry, favoured using branded items such as reusable pizza bags and lifters to keep your name top of mind. She said she had success developing a gourmet egg pizza and asking the Egg Farmers of Canada to promote it. Taverniti touted the benefits of spending time on social media. “Use Snapchat,” Taverniti said. “And talk to your kids! They know what’s happening online.” Ostrander recommended performing a “Yellow Page-ectomy” to market to your competitors’ existing customers. Strategies deemed less than successful included radio and newspaper advertising, coupons and two-for-one deals. In tight times, Rondinelli suggested scaling back on – but not eliminating – team sponsorships: “Maybe you don’t replace team shirts every year but you offer to buy new balls or bats,” she said. She urged operators to “keep your name out there.” Ostrander suggested doing “good old-fashioned marketing” by getting out and talking to people. When money is tight, it’s wise to put extra effort into your marketing, he said, adding that giveaway coupons for new customers can pay off. Taverniti said that

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in tight times he sends staff out to handdeliver flyers. When asked what she would do with a hypothetical unlimited advertising budget, Rondinelli said, “I’d give my pizza away” on the premise that her product will speak for itself. Ostrander also advocated giveaways as having a big promotional impact and spreading invaluable word-of-mouth advertising. He passed around sample flyers his staff handed out telling customers their order was free to celebrate the pizzeria’s 20th anniversary. Taverniti said would use a windfall to increase his Facebook advertising budget and invest in Instagram ads. “People spend a lot of time on social media,” he said, so investing resources there makes sense. HAVING FUN Many hungry eyes were glued to centre stage as pizza makers from Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Windsor, London, Ottawa and Montreal showed off their pizza-making skills to turn out a bevy of innovative pies at the Chef of the Year competitions, which just last year merged with the trade show. Joe Leroux of Amadio’s Pizza in Port Credit is Canadian Pizza magazine’s Chef of the Year. Leroux’s “Chi manga bene, viva bene” – which translates as “If you eat well, you live well” – earned him kudos as Canada’s top pizza maker, along with $1,000 and a trip to Las Vegas to compete in the International Pizza Challenge in March 2016. To make the winning pie, Leroux used cold fermented two-day-old 60 per cent

hydration dough with homemade garlic Parmegiano Reggiano cream sauce, sliced rosemary potatoes, hickory smoked bacon, red onions, cheddar cheese and mozzarella cheese. Joining Leroux in Las Vegas will be runner-up Giuseppe Cortinovis of Glowbal Group’s Trattoria in Vancouver. Cortinovis’ Vegetarian pie featured Einkorn flour, sliced fresh figs and a family recipe of peppers, chili and cream sauce. Steve Silvestro of Scaddabush Italian Kitchen & Bar in Toronto with his Alfa Romeo pizza featuring a mascarpone cream sauce base, gorgonzola cheese, fresh pears and bacon jam, earned third-place honours. Antonio Rupolo of Gusto Pizzeria in Brampton, Ont., took the top spot in the first-ever Canadian Pizza magazine Junior Chef of the Year. Rupolo’s Gourmet Pizza was topped with bocconcini cheese, zucchini and a sweet Genoa salami. Carlo Raillo of Buca Pizzeria + Vino in St. Albert, Alta., impressed judges with his Pumpkin Pie pizza – which featured a seasonal pumpkin puree in its crust – to emerge as the Champion of Champions. Raillo, who was Chef of the Year in the open category for the last two years, competed alongside former title-holders Dave Housman of Famoso Neapolitan Pizzeria in Edmonton and Rocco Agostino of Pizzeria Libretto in Toronto. Winner of the Great Pizza Box Fold-off is Breanna Gray of Gabriel Pizza in Ottawa. Gray folded 10 boxes in 30.12 seconds in the mid-day showdown against Carlo Raillo. The Canadian Pizza Show team extends a sincere thank-you to Saputo Foodservice (Diamond) and Moretti Forni distributed by Euro-Milan (Gold) for sponsoring the Chef of the Year competition. We’d also like to hand out a big thankyou to show sponsors Saputo Foodservice (Diamond); PizzaMaster distributed by Alfa Food Service (Platinum) – who also provided an oven for use in the competition; Stanislaus (Gold); and Dairy Farmers of Canada (Gold). Our sponsors, along with exhibitors, speakers, judges, chefs and pizzeria operators – some of whom came great distances and brought family – all played key roles in making this pizza party happen. Let’s do it again next year! • For more on trends, visit www.canadianpizzamag.com

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10 ways to market on a shoestring Diane Chiasson

he slow economy and potential recession is all anyone is talking about these days, and everyone seems to be struggling to keep his or her businesses afloat. So what are you doing to keep your pizzeria alive? During difficult times, businesses should not be decreasing their advertising and marketing budgets, but rather increasing it. Your competitors are all probably looking to cut back and save on costs right now, which means you can push yourself to the front of the line for marketing and advertising. Here are 10 easy, inexpensive ideas you can apply to your operation immediately to help increase sales and visibility.

1. BUSINESS CARDS Since everyone may already know you, put your photo on your business cards and make sure that you have lots of business cards on you to give out at all times. You should use the back of your business card for a special offer or promotion such as a free dip, drink or dessert.

4. GET OUT IN YOUR COMMUNITY Get out there and meet the locals. Build your business by networking and attending your local chamber of commerce, service club or local associations’ meetings to meet potential customers. Check online to see what conventions are coming to your area. Don’t forget to include in your marketing plan a monthly calendar of community activities with events such as school nights, sports sponsorships, girl and boy scouts, local animal shelters, Special Olympics, and troops and veterans support. Charity fundraisers are also a good way for you to get involved in your community; participating will help you gain new customers and provide goodwill. 5. CALL ON EVERYONE YOU KNOW Make a personal phone call to invite your friends, family, regular customers, and old business acquaintances to see how they are doing, and remind them of upcoming specials and promotions. Telephone calls are a great way to let your customers know they are valued and also serve as a great reminder of your pizzeria.

2. USE DATABASE INFORMATION Send information in an e-newsletter or a printed newsletter with photos of yourself and your staff. You can also send a thankyou card or a personalized, hand-signed customer appreciation letter to your best customers, or a postcard at least every 21 days to your contact list. Make sure you always ask permission to add them to your mailing list.

6. WORK WITH OTHER BUSINESSES Do cross-promotions and co-op advertising with non-competitive businesses. For example, work with your local movie theatre for a “pizza-and-a-movie” promotion. You could also sponsor a sports team from the local high school or an adult league. Print in your name and logo on their team shirts.

3. USE YOUR CAR TO ADVERTISE Have your pizzeria name and logo professionally painted on the side of your car, so that when you drive around town, you are acting as a moving billboard to advertise your establishment.

7. ATTRACT LOCAL BUSINESSES Get in touch with local businesses and offices in your area, and deliver mini “specialof- the-week” menus to local offices. You could also compile a list of email addresses to send them your weekly menu specials.

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Again, make sure you ask permission to add them to your mailing list. 8. GIVE OUT FREE SAMPLES Use food samplings to highlight new menu items and create excitement. Pass out mini bites of pizza samples to your existing customers and to people in the community; it will help you introduce people to your pizzas and get them through your door initially. 9. STAFF ATTITUDE Make sure your employees find out the names of regular customers and tell them to always recognize them when they return. Train your staff to go out of their way to ask how the pizza tastes, and simply say “hello”, “thank you” and “you’re welcome.” Make sure everyone on your staff treats your customers like royalty, and I can assure you that they will come back for more. Don’t forget that good customer service will automatically boost word-of-mouth advertising. The number 1 reason people don’t return to a restaurant is indifference or lack of concern from employees. 10. USE SOCIAL MEDIA Even if you don’t have a website, you can effectively market your pizzeria. Social media marketing is free and very powerful. Open accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and … get the word out! Invite people to try your pizza, and ask them to tell their friends about the “best pizzeria in town.” • Diane Chiasson, FCSI, president of Chiasson Consultants Inc., has been helping foodservice, hospitality and retail operators increase sales for over 25 years by providing innovative and revenue-increasing foodservice and retail merchandising programs, interior design, branding, menu engineering, marketing and promotional campaigns, and much more. Contact her at 416-926-1338, toll-free at 1-888-926-6655 or chiasson@chiassonconsultants.com, or visit www.chiassonconsultants.com.

A SLICE OF THE PIE: HOW TO BUILD A BIG LITTLE BUSINESS

When Nick Sarillo decided to open a family-friendly pizza restaurant in the suburbs of Chicago, people thought he was nuts. Everyone told him no one else would ever care about his place the way he did. They warned he’d have to work 20-hour-days and monitor every employee just to stay in business. But Sarillo saw things differently, and set out to run his business in a radically different way. Today Nick’s Pizza & Pub is one of the top ten busiest independent pizza restaurants in the country, with two locations that gross about six times the revenue of the typical pizza restaurant. How did he do it? The secret lies in Nick’s purpose-driven culture, in which every employee—from the waiters to the chefs to the managers—is equipped with the tools necessary to do their jobs while also advancing the company’s overall mission. The result is higher sales, a dedicated team, and a big little business that is beloved by the entire community. In A Slice of the Pie Sarillo tells the story of how he built his extraordinary culture and shows how anyone can follow his methods and help transform even the smallest, simplest, and most ordinary business into a successful, highperformance organization.

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Work-life balance is for everyone Tom Stankiewicz

’ve heard many of my friends use a rather catchy phrase when they talk about their own jobs: the work-life balance. Unlike me – a small business owner – they work for bigger corporations that offer this flexible work option to all of their employees. Most take advantage of it to improve their hectic work schedules and balance their family life. It’s a trend that is gaining momentum for various reasons, and after much discussion on the topic, I have come to realize that being self-employed and employing others puts us in a unique situation. In addition to managing our own worklife balance, we also must be conscious of what is important to our employees. Unlike big corporations, small business owners typically employ 10 to 15 people. With the exception of a few, most of them are working part-time hours. These employees are also looking for some sort of flexibility to be able to take care of their other responsibilities. When dealing with a smaller workforce, it could become difficult to agree to and honour specific work arrangements. Many of us try to accommodate. However, with fewer people to cover essential work hours, the flexibility could be pushed to the limit. There are a few proactive steps small business owners can take to ensure those who are being hired are the right fit for the business. It’s helpful to ask potential employees what work-life balance means to them. It is a very general term that means different things to different people. Some might say that having evenings free to attend classes would be ideal. Others could say that working on the weekends would not be the best option for them because

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it collides with their family time. There could be as many answers as there are people looking for work. The important takeaway is that their responses should guide you through the hiring process to select the best candidate for the job. This might sound like a very basic and, for many employers, odd question to ask. Typically, when we advertise we are looking for new employees, we simply outline our requirements for the job. Very rarely will the job posting include any description of work flexibility. Applicants come in with different work experiences and sooner or later someone is hired. Valuable time and resources are invested to train the new employee. A few months later, this new employee who seemed to be a perfect fit for the job leaves your pizzeria. In such cases, you might not always get a two-week notice. Most likely you will find out the day before that the employee is not returning to work. Usually the explanation is that they found a new job that offers them exactly what they were looking for. If you didn’t ask the right questions to find out what their expectations were, this should not be a big surprise to you. Many employers then wonder what it is that was missing from the job the employee just left. At this point it is too late, and you are back to advertising a job opening again. I think the above example is a great illustration of what small business owners frequently must deal with. That is why it is important to ask the work-life balance question early on to understand what the employee is looking for. If we assume that just getting the job and being paid for it is all that people are looking for, then we will never break the cycle. It is true that

we cannot control everything, but we can be better prepared when hiring new employees. At the very least, once we have the information, we can understand what is important to each employee. We can have a productive discussion to let them know what aspects of their worklife balance could be accommodated. This would be proactive planning for the future to ensure individuals who fit best into your specific business environment become part of your team. One of the limitations with making work-life balance a priority at a pizzeria is that employees have to physically be at the location. There is no option for someone to work from home. There are also specific hours and days that employees have to be scheduled to work. With that being said, people who apply for these jobs understand that this is how the business operates. There is room to make small adjustments to accommodate various requests. Someone could ask for flexibility to start work later in the afternoon to be able to pick up kids from school. At the same time, there might be someone who would prefer to work the earlier hours to be able to attend school in the evenings. Overall, having a conversation about work-life balance with potential employees should help you identify more easily those who are looking for more than you can offer. Ideally, it will help you attract and hire individuals who will work for you for a longer time because it suits their values and priorities. • Tom Stankiewicz has been in the pizza business for more than 15 years. He has been the proprietor of Bondi’s Pizza in London, Ont., since 2000 and is president of the Canadian Pizza Team.

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Contact your local repesentative to arrange a demonstration MARITIME PROVINCES Flanagan Agencies, Inc. Moncton, New Brunswick 506.387.8757 Fax: 506.387.8750 sales@fai.ca

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