THE DOUGHBOYS
Hey! I'm Luke and this is my twin, Owen. We're the founders and CPO (Chief Pizza Officers) of Doughboys Pizza - aka the best frozen pizza brand ever - which we started at the very wise age of 19.
I guess you're wondering how we got here? And if I'm to be honest, we have absolutely no clue... we just thought selling pizzas would be bit of a laugh and well, things just got a little out of control...
Fast forward 4 years, we now supply thousands of hospitality venues across the UK, have a retail range in Ocado, won 6+ awards and have eaten an ungodly amount of pizza all in the name of 'hard work', of course.
AS SEEN IN
OUR JOURNEY - THROUGH THE YEARS
PIZZA, PANDEMICS AND PART-TIME JOBS
Timing is everything as we discovered when Doughboys Pizza was born – right before the pandemic hit. We secured a distribution deal with Bidfood, signed our first pub customer, then promptly had to hit pause as COVID-19 selfishly ruined our plans. So we got temporary jobs, with Owen working full time at Tesco and Luke working between Tesco and M&S.
Business or no business, the hustle never stops.
BACK FROM THE DEAD (PIZZA STYLE)
After 18 months of temporary supermarket jobs, our accountants asked if we were going to revive the business or close it. Enter the "Eat Out to Help Out" scheme and our chance to shine.
We relaunched Doughboys Pizza, converted mum's garage into a distribution hub, and sent pizzas straight to hospitality venues via overnight courier. We quickly outgrew the garage (thanks to pizza demand), moved to a commercial space, and even made it to the finals of the Great British Entrepreneur Awards.
From garage to glory – who knew?
WAREHOUSE WONDERS & FORKLIFT FOLLIES
We outgrew our first office space nearly as fast as it takes for our delicious handmade Italian pizzas to cook, so we had to rent a fridge trailer (because who doesn’t need a trailer full of pizza?).
After many viewings, we found a 4,000sqft warehouse and took the leap. We went all out – fancy pallet racking (built by us, safety first? Don't tell mum), Franny the second-hand forklift, and an upgraded 30-pallet freezer.
Looking back, maybe it would have been wise to have a plan by this point!
Trade Shows, Turtles, and Tasty Retail Deals
This was the year we did it all: designed, and built our very first trade show stand from scratch (we attended the exhibition too), turned our warehouse into a pizza photo studio for a weekend and collaborated with a pizza van activation with the UK largest toy store to promote The Ninja Turtles movie.
We also squeezed in a couple business trips to our factories in Italy. Oh, and did we mention we secured a retail deal with Ocado? 2023 was a year of big pizzas and even bigger moves!
VESPA ADVENTURES & STADIUM TAKEOVERS
We kicked off 2024 with a sweet collaboration with Hackney Gelato, attended more trade shows and built a stand so big it made our first one look like a lunchbox. We took a trip to Wales on our birthday to buy an Italian flag-wrapped Vespa (because why not?). Our collaboration with a top premier league football club, that we are not allowed to confirm or deny, and that may or may not be in north London, was taken to the next level, co-branding pizza kiosks at the stadium.
Again? Yep, we also started to run out of capacity once again, so done what any normal start-up would do and hired two shipping container freezers.
Oh, we nearly forgot to mention Dragons’ Den....
OUR DRAGONS DEN SUCCESS
Our Dragon's Den debut was like stepping into a pizza oven - hot, intense and absolutely terrifying. But despite the nerves and the dragons' sharp questions, the Doughboys managed to turn up the heat and land a deal with Peter Jones! It was a whirlwind but in the end, we walked out with a deal hotter than our pizzas!
3x OFFERS, 1x WINNER
With complements from all 5 Dragons, we were thrilled to receive offers from Deborah Meaden, Sarah Davies and the one and only, Peter Jones.
