Pizza Today - April 2017 - 16

conversation

DAN RICHER

RAZZA / JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY
The intimate pizzeria opened in 2012.
Chef and Owner Dan Richer applies his
culinary craft to Razza's menu of artisan
pizza and small plates with an emphasis
on harnessing local ingredients.

DAN LETS US IN ON THE RAZZA CONCEPT AND TAKING A PRODUCT TO THE RETAIL MARKET
AT RAZZA, WE ARE CRAFTSMEN. We
have an unwavering and intense dedication
to creating better pizza each day. We focus
so much of our time and energy on the finer
details. We choose our ingredients carefully
and we continuously hone our techniques.
The style of pizza is best described as
artisanal. We are part of a new breed of
American pizza in that we challenge common
pizza production practices and we're not
confined by aiming for authenticity. We rely
on Italian sensibility but not on imported
Italian ingredients. For our pizza, we use
American ingredients exclusively. We do
not believe that a Neapolitan oven, San
Marzano tomatoes, 00 flour and imported
Italian olive oil are a requirement for
stellar pizza. Instead, we use our taste
buds to decide our ingredients - and I
am convinced that incredible pizza can be
produced in any oven. When developing our
pizza, I broke down pizza as a whole into
its individual components and determined
the characteristics that I desired in my
perfect pizza. This ended up being a list
of 40 characteristics from the acidity and
sweetness of the tomatoes to the crispness
and aroma of the crust. I've spent the last
1 6 / P I Z Z AT O D AY. C O M / A P R I L 2 0 1 7

10 years trying to achieve these specific
characteristics one by one. It's still in progress
and probably will be until I make my last
pizza. That's Razza's concept: to make the
pizza better today than it was yesterday.
OUR COMPANY CULTURE is something
that we focus on constantly as well. Our core
values drive our actions and steer our team
in a positive direction. For brevity, I'll just list
two of our core values:
1. BRING JOY. What we do has the power
to bring joy to our guests and to each other.
It is the reason we exist and is a source
of immense pride for us individually and
collectively. We get to make people happy!
2. GROWTH. We teach and we learn from
one another, recognizing we can always
improve. We never take anything for granted.
As individuals, we come from different places
and have experienced different things, but we
all possess the ability to learn and grow.
TAKING A PRODUCT TO THE RETAIL
MARKET - Selling our butter at Whole

Foods was an incredible opportunity, and
I learned so much during the process from
compliance to packaging to distribution. The
team at Whole Foods was wonderful to work
with and couldn't have been more helpful.

Financial projections and logistics are some of
the most important things to consider before
making the decision to bring your product to
market. After taking into consideration the
cost of goods, labor, packaging, distribution,
insurance, etc., how many "units" do you
need to sell for it to be worth the added
responsibilities? If you have a product that is
very inexpensive to produce and if you have
tons of excess production space, it's certainly
worth considering. Start by testing the market
and your production capabilities by selling
retail in your restaurant and to other small
businesses in the area. Your costs will be
slightly higher on a per-unit basis but you will
work out the kinks on a small scale.

AT PIZZA & PASTA NORTHEAST IN
OCTOBER, DAN RICHER will present a

demonstration on naturally leavened
pizza. Go to PizzaToday.com/news/
to discover Dan's three key tips to
producing a great naturally leavened
dough.
http://www.PizzaToday.com/news/ http://www.PIZZATODAY.COM
Pizza Today - April 2017

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