New Forest Pizza Co

Our journey with Jay began in early 2018.

We came across Bushman ovens after weeks of researching pizza ovens and contacted Jay, shortly after we arranged a consultation, we debated whether or not it was worth driving the 3 hours to Worcester… it most certainly was!

We arrived with our notes and full of ideas about what we thought we wanted and how we were going to move forward with our plan, in reality, we quickly realised just how little we knew and were going to need our hands held along the way, this came in the form of Jay. If you have a question, Jay always has the answer, you may not always agree initially but he is more often than not right. He has the expertise, he has done the hard work, tried and tested everything from the type of set-up and oven that will work for you down to the cheese you cook with.

Most of our ideas were turned on their head with practical reasons why they wouldn’t work, he has been building ovens, and cooking at private events and festivals for a long time and knows what works and what doesn’t.

Being a couple in our early 50s we were looking for a lifestyle change, fed up with the commute and long hours we wanted to invest our time and energy in ourselves, we knew we didn’t want fixed premises as part of the plan was to take the winters off, we have spent the last 3 winters in Koh Samui (Thailand) and have returned to the UK when the clocks go forward. Following the consultation with Jay we knew that we wanted to buy a mobile Bushman Oven and the compact kitchen was the solution we had been looking for just a few months later we were booked for our first cook on the 1st of June 2018. Although it was a small gathering we were surprisingly nervous on our first cook, we actually forgot pepperoni and basil and had to stop off and pick some up and after a shaky start, we cooked 40 pizzas and were delighted with ourselves!

In our first season, we cooked everywhere and anywhere we could to build up our confidence and our brand, we cooked at local events, food festivals, rugby clubs, college food fayres, a pumpkin pick, a local marathon event (10,000 people) and a few ‘pop ups’.We were booked for a handful of private parties and two weddings in the first year which increased to almost 30 in year two! Now we concentrate on weddings and private events which we prefer because you know exactly how many guests you are catering for and you are paid whether it rains or shines. We still support local food fayres and events to keep our name out there and often pick up bookings when the public sees our set-up and tastes our food. We would have no hesitation in recommending a consultation with Jay, if you are serious then he will listen and guide you and his enthusiasm is infectious. He is always at the end of the phone or texts to answer even the most random or seemingly mundane questions. We are proud of the business we have built in such a short time and without a miniscule of a doubt we know we could not have achieved this without Jay. In our house, he is referred to as our ‘Pizza Guru’.