Welcome to our series, ‘Meet the Entrepreneur’, where we meet entrepreneurs and start-ups from the Channel Islands. We find out what they are doing, what ‘drives’ them and what advice they would give anyone starting out in business.
Today, we meet Liz and James Matthewson, from The Pizza Box.
Tell us about your business
The Pizza Box is a ‘pizza food’ business with a twist. You get all the fresh ingredients to make your own fresh and hot pizza, avoiding the wait for a sometimes late and cold pizza delivery.
Making pizzas is a wonderful way to bring people together, whether you’re a couple, friends, a family or even a group of colleagues having a small team-building Event. Making and baking your own pizza with a kit from The Pizza Box puts the fun into your food!
The Pizza Box does most of the work for you, from their sourdough pizza balls, made from an original Neapolitan recipe which allows greater elasticity of the dough, to the special, secret recipe tomato sauce. The Pizza Box kits are made using the finest ingredients, with no artificial preservatives, flavours or GM materials.
Tell us about your ‘journey’ and how you got to this point
Liz had been working for AgeUK up until the point we moved to Jersey. James had been running his UK company, EVRYWHERE Group, for around five years when the opportunity to move to Jersey was presented to us. We jumped at it and arrived on the island at the end of August 2019.
James launched SUPERLUXE to create events in Jersey and Liz took care of the house and kids. Liz had been looking for a while for a role that would spark her interest, but nothing had come up. Then we went into lock-down.
The Pizza Box came up for Sale in December 2020 so we jumped at it. We acquired it two weeks later and re-launched it on the 11th December and since then, it’s been crazy.
Can you talk us through a typical working day?
There’s no such thing as a typical The Pizza Box day as we have so much variety. Some days we are prepping for our ecommerce orders only, others we are handling a large corporate order or delivering one of our two Roccbox Pizza Ovens to a customer who has hired it for some pizza making fun.
What is typical about our working day is that as a husband and wife team, we are pushing The Pizza Box forward together. We both work in the kitchen, assembling our Pizza Box kits to go out for delivery, and we both work in the office talking to customers and managing the admin. James does most of the deliveries (he likes driving around the island) because he likes to personally meet the customers and talk to them about The Pizza Box.
Have you had support from Jersey Business or Digital Jersey?
To date, we have been pretty self-sufficient and have grown the business through our own initiatives. That said, James is an Ambassador for Digital Jersey and is planning to catch up with Jersey Business soon.
Can you share your experience with banks?
We bank with Barclays and they have been fantastic. Our account opening was easy and the support we had to get up and running with the mobile banking app was great. In fact, our initiative to put The Pizza Box into Co-op Grand Marche stores came as a result of our talks with Barclays.
How has Covid-19 impacted your business?
To be honest we feel like we’ve been benefactors of covid. With offices closed and staff working from home, keeping employees engaged was a top priority for many of the islands big employers. Luckily for us, they came to us and asked us to deliver pizza boxes to their staff for Pizza Zoom events.
In four months, we have delivered over 25 corporate Pizza Box events. Parents also needed things to do with the kids whilst schools were closed, so again, The Pizza Box benefited from that and generally our ecommerce business did well as hospitality was closed.
What’s been your biggest challenge as an entrepreneur/startup?
There are so many….
- Time: we worry about getting everything done in time, especially when we have large orders.
- Cash flow: we pay our suppliers very quickly, but cash coming into the business can be hard to predict.
- Stock: one of the big challenges we had was a shortage of goods coming on to the island. Whilst we source everything locally that goes into a Pizza Box, our suppliers buy from the UK and Europe. Some things just weren’t making it over on the boats and that gave us some really stressful times.
We’re like most businesses in that we have our worries. But in pretty much all cases, we find a solution and we overcome the challenges put in front of us. They’re all a learning curve and we grow from them.
Can you share any pleasant experiences?
We have been overwhelmed by the love and support Jersey has shown us. Customers have really embraced The Pizza Box and some have become extremely local customers, repeat-purchasing frequently.
We’re innovating the brand and the product, and we’re having fun with it. But I guess the biggest surprise was how well we work together as a husband and wife team… we thought we would hate working together, but it’s actually been really good.
What advice would you give to someone who has a start-up idea?
Don’t wait for the perfect moment to start…. there never is one. Jump in.
Have a plan, but don’t over-think it.
Prepare to fail and see any failures as success. You learn from them and you do better next time. No matter how small it was, any failings always gave rise to better results next time.
Take every opportunity you get offered… no matter how scary. I’ve been asked to do things out of my comfort zone for clients, like hosting a Zoom Pizza Party. I’m no Joe Wicks, but I did it and people had a great time watching and learning how to make their pizza.
Aside from ChannelEye.Media, who do you follow on social media?
We’ve just done some work with the Housewives of Jersey, so we’re now following them more avidly than ever.
We’re also looking to expand The Pizza Box into Guernsey, so we’re starting to follow more people over there. The Pizza Box is very active on socials, so our Followers and Following is constantly changing.
What do you do in your downtime?
Children. Beach. Eating! Not necessarily in that order. The Pizza Box can be a seven-day a week job so we’re always kept busy. But, we love the Zoo, Gorey and Portelet when we get time out of making and delivering pizza kits across the island.
What’s your favourite film?
For James, it’s Hitch. He’s a bit of an old romantic. For Liz, it’s the Greatest Showman as she just loves to sing and dance with the kids to the music.
What music do you listen to?
Great question! We have curated a Spotify Playlist for The Pizza Box.
What book are you reading at the moment?
James is currently reading ‘Super blend me’ by Jason Vale in preparation for a seven day detox. Something that’s not easy to do when you own a Pizza business!
What is your favourite gadget?
It’s got to be our phones. We run our businesses and lives through them.
For more information about The Pizza Box:
Exclusive Channel Eye readers offer. 25% off your total basket value. Use Code CEYE25
Are you a Channel Islands entrepreneur/startup who would like to be featured in Channel Eye? If so, please drop an email to [email protected]
Photos courtesy of Oliver Doran.
