Bishops Cleeve Italian style pizza business is fining customers who choose to order pineapple as a topping in the month of April.
Home cooks Rachael Willoughby, 59 and Elliott Richmond, 52 who run CasaGees had previously refused to sell pineapple on their pizzas – saying the topping is untraditional.
But for the month of April they are relaxing the rules to raise funds for a local food bank charity, Feed Cheltenham.
Rachael said: “On April 1st we launched a HA HA HAwaiian pizza – a pizza with pineapple which our loyal customers will be shocked and horrified by. We have always stood by our rule that pineapple has no place on an Italian pizza but we are relaxing the rules for a short time only.
“However there is a catch – ordering pineapple as a topping will cost you £49 but you’ll be doing a good deed as all proceeds will be going to Feed Cheltenham.”
HA HA HAwaiian is available to order from CasaGees in Bishop’s Cleeve for the whole month of April at £49 and ALL proceeds of this will go to the charity .
Rachael added: “Our first customer who bought the pineapple pizza did so for his grandson who was staying with him as he loves Hawaiian pizza – he was happy to pay extra as it was going to a good cause. What a lovely Grandfather!”
A spokesperson for Feed Cheltenham said: “We would be extremely pleased to receive any charitable donations from this event. We are part of YMCA and work alongside six community pantries in Cheltenham which are all run by separate smaller charities.
“Overall, approximately 520 households are supported each week by the pantries.”
Rachael added: “Our pizzas are high end, traditional Neapolitan style usually served with no pineapple: ever.
“But Elliott has been convinced to make this exception for a good cause.”
CasaGees was a business venture that started during lockdown when Rachael and Elliott’s software company lost some big contracts and they had to replace their income.
Elliott was brought up in Malta, just a boat ride away from Italy, and has always loved pizza made the Italian way. After spending years cooking pizza for friends and family they started serving customers in April 2020.
Now they have a profitable pizza delivery business which they run from home and at events.
The couple have big ambitions to license their method and teach other couples how to create a similar business so eventually there will be a network all over the UK of independent, profitable home pizzerias just like theirs.
Rachael said: “We love serving our local community with delicious pizza and we know that people really do like to support local rather than big impersonal chains.
“We’re really excited to take this business to the next level, and to help other people enjoy making dough from making dough.
“It’s safe to say that this wasnt on our radar five years ago but we are very proud of how the business has grown out of what was a pretty stressful time.”