Crafting Community Connections, One Pizza at a Time
PHOTO: Rachael Willoughby and Elliott Richmon, founders of CasaGees, share a warm moment by the hearth, holding a freshly baked pizza – a symbol of their passion for community, connection, and delicious Neapolitan fare. Photo courtesy by SCOTT Media
In the heart of Cleeve, nestled near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, a savory revolution has taken root amidst the challenges of lockdown. Meet Rachael Willoughby and Elliott Richmon, the dynamic duo behind CasaGees, a local pizza enterprise that has not only weathered the storm but soared to new heights of success during these uncertain times.
With a background in running their own software business for over two decades, Rachael and Elliott found themselves at a crossroads when lockdown measures slashed their income overnight. Faced with adversity, they turned to their shared passion for crafting traditional Neapolitan pizzas, sparking the birth of CasaGees. What began as a solution to financial strain quickly evolved into a thriving venture, delivering delectable pizzas within a four-mile radius of their home.
What sets CasaGees apart is not just the mouthwatering pizzas but the couple’s unwavering commitment to their community. Their innovative “pizza giveaway” initiative, sparked by a delivery mishap turned heartwarming gesture, has become a beacon of goodwill, surprising lucky households with free pizzas weekly. This initiative not only delights recipients but also cultivates a sense of camaraderie, reinforcing CasaGees‘ integral role within the local fabric.
With over 10,000 pizzas delivered and a slew of glowing reviews, CasaGees‘ success is testament to the quality of their product and their relentless dedication to customer satisfaction. But it’s not just about pizzas; it’s about fostering connections and giving back. From supporting local charities to mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs, Rachael and Elliott epitomize the spirit of community-driven entrepreneurship.
As CasaGees continues to thrive, Rachael and Elliott have their sights set on the future. Plans to expand their presence at events, bolster their team, and potentially explore new avenues are on the horizon. Yet, amidst this growth, their commitment to authenticity and community remains unwavering.
Join us as we delve into the journey of CasaGees, a testament to resilience, innovation, and the power of community in the face of adversity.
Secrets of CasaGees‘ Success:
Quality Ingredients, Timely Deliveries, and the Recipe for Customer Delight
Can you share more about the origins of CasaGees and how the idea of starting a pizza venture came about during the lockdown?
When lockdown was instigated, we were running a software company. And two days after lockdown was announced our retained clients panicked and instigated a 50% reduction in their retainer fees, and so therefore 50% of our income was down overnight. And yes, of course, our expenses had remained the same. We needed to think of a way of making up the shortfall of the income that we were losing and Casagees was born literally from a conversation in bed when my partner Eddie Richmond, who is the pizza chef of Casagees said that the businesses that would be doing really well are those that were able to pivot and things like restaurants who are able to pivot to takeaways and delivery. Knowing that in the past, we had many friends and families saying that we should sell our pizzas. So that was when the idea for the pizza delivery business was born. And we thought, ‘let’s see if we can take this forward’. Within three weeks, because of our software knowledge, we were able to set up the appropriate software for the chef, a ticketing system, and for customers to order online. And so literally within three weeks of the idea, we were delivering our first pizza.
The pizza giveaway initiative is a unique and heartwarming idea. What inspired you to turn a delivery mishap into a community-oriented giveaway event?
This came about by a wrong delivery one day where we delivered the pizza to somebody who had the same name as the customer who had placed the order. As an apology for disturbing them that night, we let them keep the pizza and delivered new ones to the correct address. They then messaged us to say thank you and how they found the pizzas delicious and that they would be ordering again which they did a couple of weeks later.
This led us to think that actually it would be nice to surprise people with pizzas. It would be a great PR initiative that we could promote Casagees every week in terms of running this initiative every week and ideally those people would then place orders in the future after tasting our pizzas and this is actually proven to be the case.
We’re currently on our fifth week of running this initiative and we intent to run it every week of the year.
Can you tell us more about the criteria for selecting the lucky household each week, and how the community has responded to this initiative so far?
The way it works is that we pull a street name at the beginning of the week. We’re going alphabetically including streets in the surrounding villages that we deliver to.
The first week we listed all of the streets beginning with an A and then posted on our page explaining that these are the streets going into the draw on the Tuesday and to let us know if we’ve missed any. This gives us great feedback on our social media pages and engages the local community with us. People are tagging people as well as suggesting street names that we may have missed off.
Then on the Tuesday we draw the street name live on our Facebook page using a name generator and we’ve now started to see traction with people coming on to watch it and to comment on it. We trice and do that at a specific time every week and if by any chance we can’t make that time we let people know that there has been a change.
The street name gets announced and then on the following Friday we research all of the house numbers using Zoopla. There might be house names as well and all of that goes onto a list and we pull that number on the Friday so that everyone knows the street and the house number we’re delivering to.
On the Saturday, we deliver two free pizzas, usually a vegetarian and a meat one to that address. In some instances it’s a total surprise to the people living there but we’re starting to find out people are knowing about it and tagging on social media that they’ve won. It’s a great feeling to be able to deliver the pizzas and then we’re seeing those winners place orders later down the line. It’s starting to create a real local buzz.
With over 10,000 pizzas delivered and numerous positive reviews, what do you believe sets CasaGees’ pizzas apart and contributes to your success?
I believe that what sets us apart is the quality of our pizzas as well as the fact that we have always tried to deliver on time and that the pizzas will still be hot on delivery. That’s why we only have a small four-mile radius in which we deliver but people can collect if they live outside of our delivery zone.
I also think that our constant marketing contributes to our success. We take marketing very seriously and we’re constantly getting new people signing up to our system that sends out a weekly email to those people who have ordered from us.
Now we’re getting to the stage where we’re fully booked at the weekends with people starting to place their orders on the Monday for the weekend to come.
Your top-selling pizzas include margherita, meat feast, and pepperoni. Are there any unique twists or special techniques you incorporate to make these classic pizzas stand out?
There isn’t a unique twist that makes our pizzas stand out. I think that it’s because we use good ingredients and use a traditional Neapolitan style recipe which starts with the dough being created the night before from eight pm.
Operating as a home-based catering business, how has the local community’s support played a role in CasaGees’ growth and success?
We’ve been extremely grateful for the local support that we’ve received. We believe that this is down to the fact that we contribute to the local community as much as we can.
For the business community, we will liaise with them, work with them and deliver their leaflets along with our pizzas.
We support schools and local charities with our events called ‘takeaway to giveaway’ where we choose a local charity to donate 50% of our profits to. We do that on a yearly basis but we’re also open to donating free pizza vouchers.
When we get requests from local charities and schools it gives us this great sense that the community are really behind our business. I think it’s because it started in lockdown and has just gone from strength to strength because of that community support. There have been several national based pizza companies that have opened up during the time that we’ve been running but that hasn’t affected our sales and we’re still continuing to grow.
You mentioned your plans to mentor aspiring entrepreneurs in 2024. What motivated you to take on this role, and what advice do you have for those looking to start a similar venture?
I’ve been fascinated by business from a very early age. My parents had their own business as I grew up so being a business owner feels like a very natural thing with me. I’m passionate about helping other people in business. In the past I have run a 14k Facebook business page, started a course which shows people how to set up a business from scratch so it feels like a natural progression for me to show people how to set up a catering business from scratch and particularly a catering business from home and then from that I’d love to mentor people on an individual basis if they so desire.
Currently we’re planning on spending the next couple of months to write courses online for people to access and one of those would be how to set up a catering business from your home and the other would be how to market your catering business because marketing is also a speciality and a passion of mine.
Catering events like the Wigan football match and weddings must have presented exciting opportunities. Can you share some memorable moments or challenges you’ve faced while catering such events?
We’ve found the main challenge when you’re catering for events is always the timings and if it’s a public event like the Wigan football event, you’re never sure exactly how many people will turn up and what time they’re arriving so there’s always the challenge of making sure that you’re fully prepared for any immediate onslaught of customers.
With weddings the challenge is also around timings as well as getting everything out when it’s expected so we have to be fully prepared and have everything on board so that we can cater for any eventualities like burning a pizza so it’s always best to have extra stock on board.
Reflecting on the past year, you mentioned revenue doubling and the addition of a mobile kitchen. What were some key strategies that contributed to this growth, and how do you plan to sustain this momentum?
Revenue has doubled simply because the demand is there the marketing has been increased and it’s done on a regular basis. So we’ve always got people wanting to buy the pizzas. Every time we sell out. We increase the slots and the availability of the pizzas so we are planning we’re actually now tripling our original income. And that is down to constant marketing. constantly keeping in touch with the customers that we have so 75% of our customers return. So if we’re marketing to new customers, this gives us the opportunity for growth. about customers return. So if we’re marketing to new customers, this gives us the opportunity for growth.
We believe that revenue has doubled simply because the demand is there. The marketing has been increased and it’s being done on a regular basis, so we’ve always got people wanting to buy the pizzas and every time we sell out we increase the slots and availability of the pizzas so now we’re tripling our original income. That’s down to constant marketing, constantly keeping in touch with our customers and we have 75% of our customers returning and if we’re marketing to new customers that gives us the opportunity for growth.
Looking ahead, how do you envision the future of CasaGees, and are there any new menu items or expansions on the horizon for 2024?
In the future we have plans to increase the number of events that we do. This includes public events and not just private ones. We’ll be increasing our staff shortly. We currently have five part time staff members but we’re looking to take on another pizza chef to give us the ability to increase the number of events that we do. Further down the line if demand continues the way it is we might have to look at a premises but this isn’t set in stone.