Proud of their hand-made products

Proud of their hand-made products
Rhonda Dredge

The guys at S.P.Q.R were busy loading up the pizza oven with sourdough bases down at The District Docklands in July despite the gloom of the lockdown.

People love their pizzas and sales of bases are doing well now there is more of a focus on home life.

From Scratch Dough sells two ranges to food stores, a confit garlic base and one with tomato sauce.

The business, like many, has evolved out of the changing conditions brought on by the pandemic, from pizza restaurant to base manufacturer.

“We started during the first lockdown because we couldn’t sell as a restaurant,” operations manager Jackson Maddocks said.

“We did takeaway for a while.” “In January we closed down to the public and ground full time to manufacturing. It’s working out really well. We’re selling 5000 pizza bases a week.”

The business is one of a number of Docklands food retailers now supplying to a specific market rather than to destination visitors.

The people just aren’t around at The District, so the business is distributing to where the consumers actually are – places like Queen Vic Market and local food stores.

“There’s not a lot happening around here,” Jackson said. “We found our niche market to fill. It was kind of our mindset of a few places we wanted to distribute to.”

Jackson is proud of their specialist sourdough mixture. The bases are hand-stretched and hand-made and take 48 hours.

The starter is 18 years old. When heated up at home with toppings, the bases remain chewy and appeal to the more discerning tastes that have evolved during lockdown.

Jackson said that the important thing about being in the hospitality industry was making people feel welcome.

“Hospo is about being hospitable,” he said. “So many people have their own environment in a café. You’re not there for yourself. We try not to make people feel excluded.”

Customers can walk in off the street and buy the wood-fired bases, knowing they’ll be good.

Docklands can be proud of the hand-made products now replacing the more generic ones aimed at tourists •

spqrpizzeria.com

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