How this Doncaster pizzeria navigated through lockdown

The hospitality sector was effectively brought to a halt last year. Many businesses across the nation were quick to change their business models following a nationwide lockdown.

One shining example is Doncaster-based pizzeria The Pizza Trail, whose owner saw no option but to transform operations to navigate through the testing times.

Oliver, owner and chef at The Pizza Trail, told us: “Lockdown hit us with a real bang in March 2020. Overnight I got laid off from my full-time head chef job, so attention turned to turning my event catering business into a full time job.”

“Then we started to lose all our summer public events and the 20 weddings we had booked for the late summer. We had to do something fast.”

To continue operating during lockdown, the mobile pizzeria turned into a pop-up takeaway service and began serving villages around Doncaster. Business started to grow each month and Oliver saw signs of recovery.

The Pizza Trail also made use of single-use disposable catering supplies to serve customers. Using single-use packaging would help minimise unnecessary contact and help prevent the spread of covid-19.

Oliver said: “We are using soup cups to make our homemade cheesecake pots with weekly changing flavours. When we started to make them, we went from serving a few desserts a week. Now some customers are coming to us just for our cheesecake pots.”

You can follow the trail on Facebook.

Find out more about The Pizza Trail by visiting the website.