A trailer selling fresh stone-baked pizzas has been given the green light to open in Perth.
The Stielow Pizza Co will operate a mobile pizza van from the Inveralmond Industrial Estate outside woodburning stove firm Burning Question.
The family-run van will launch on November 14 and will be open every Tuesday and Thursday from noon until 5pm.
A planning proposal was submitted to Perth and Kinross Council in August for the trailer – and has since been given the go-ahead.
The owner of the business is Clunie man Lewis Stielow, 22, who told The Courier that the idea came about during lockdown.
Pizza venture started in lockdown
Lewis also owns a firewood business alongside dad Alex 55, and mum Esther, 52.
He said: “During the first lockdown in 2020, we were quiet with our main firewood business and we’ve always made pizza at home in our kitchen.
“We thought, maybe we can lift our friends’ spirits by making pizza at home and delivering it.
“So we started delivering to Blairgowrie, Dunkeld and the surrounding area.
“That was really popular and people really enjoyed that. As Covid eased off, we went back to our firewood business.”
Lewis started a business degree at Perth College in 2022, with one module requiring him to create a mock business.
Driven on by the course, he decided to start an official pizza firm.
“We had a garden shed that was empty so we turned it into a pizza bakery to sell frozen pizzas,” Lewis continued.
“We part-baked them, froze them and then local businesses sold them on.
“That was going really well but in December last year unfortunately our bakery had a fire and burned down, which was devastating.
“The night that it happened we thought we were on to something good here and we shouldn’t let this get us down.”
Stielow Pizza Co ‘a unique concept to Perth’
Lewis’ dream had always been to sell fresh pizza and he came up with the idea of a trailer after taking inspiration from Glasgow-based company Dough Man’s Land.
The van will cater to workers on the industrial estate, but Lewis is excited to see if it will take off elsewhere.
He said: “It’ll be interesting to see where people actually come from.
“When we started this, we thought we can market ourselves as doing catering but at the moment we’re going to work on establishing a street pitch.
“Maybe further down the line we can see about catering events.
“This is new, exciting and I’m just excited to finally get going as this is a unique concept to Perth.”
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