Bellagios Interview

Recently I sent an email to a Bellagios Pizzas representative to get some answers about their Gluten Free Pizzas! I was impressed with how quickly I got a response and I will just paste their answers below, please read through and let me know if you have anymore questions that I could ask them! Here is my Review of Bellagios for those interested: Bellagios Restaurant Spotlight.

What events impacted the decision to start serving Gluten Free pizzas? We
catered many events that had people attending that “haven’t had pizza in
years” and it became something that happened very frequently. While meeting
with a company that wanted to produce all our dough for us, the gluten free
topic came up and after a lengthy discussion, we all agreed there was a
significant need in the market. When we began researching food allergies
and Celiac disease specifically, we quickly realized how this issue was
becoming a major issue in our market.

How was the staff trained to handle these pizzas that need special
attention? We tried to make it is basic as possible. First, we removed all
wheat flour in our stores and went with rice flour. We then brought in
specific cooking pans and all the required utensils to keep everything
separate from our standard process. We also did the research to determine
gluten content in ALL our products in order to put together a gluten free
menu. As for training, we worked with our teams and impressed upon them the
significance of avoiding cross-contamination and how this could impact
someone if we were not cautious. Our employees genuinely care about our
customers and took this gluten free responsibility very seriously. Our
employees were TOTALLY on board from day one and find it gratifying to serve
this new customer base.

What precautions are taken to ensure these pizzas are Gluten Free and avoid
cross contamination? See above response.

How do you make your crust? We have it made by a company in Eastern Oregon.
They produce HUGE volumes of pizza dough for other companies. Every Sunday
night they clean their plant to clean-room level cleanliness. Before
introducing any wheat in to their plant on Monday mornings, they produce our
gluten free dough. We worked with this company for over a year finalizing
the recipe while at the same time evaluating other products. Our final
product was far superior to all the other products we tested. This company
is totally committed to us and our success with this product. They are
terrific to deal with and are only making this dough for us although they
have been contacted by restaurants all over the country to order this
product after hearing about or trying our product.

What kind of response have you gotten from the arrival of these pizzas on
your menu? Verbal? Any sales figures? We have had great response and even
have a customer testimonial on U-Tube. We have only had one customer that
had any reaction to our product but that was determined to be a response to
their soy allergy. Our crust does contain soy. We have many customers that
buy this pizza just to avoid white flour as well. We also have customers
that live in other parts of Oregon that buy our crusts by the case to make
pizza at home. Company-wide in our 13 stores, we sell an average of 400
gluten free pizzas a week at an average price of about $13.00.

Tags: Gluten Free Pizza