The Teenage Chef bringing Wood-Fired Food to Wiltshire

Ready to trade two days before the UK was first put into lockdown, Will’s Pizza Revolution didn’t quite have the launch Tom Will had been hoping for. Now, a year later, Tom shares his unexpected success story with SOPHIE HODGETTS.

Tom Will has always had a passion for food.

Growing up, he often left behind life in Royal Wootton Bassett in favour of fishing in the Welsh countryside.

“I knew I wanted to be a chef from an early age,” Tom, now 19, remembers. “I holidayed in Wales on my grandad’s farm quite a lot, and I found a love of food there really – good food, that is.”

Despite a 60-mile round trip from his home, Tom’s quest for good food led him to a two-year catering course at Bath College in 2017.

“I didn’t do terribly in school, I just didn’t enjoy it,” he explains. “I’m more of a practical guy I think, and they had a restaurant there where you could serve as a student. People don’t go expecting Michelin star service, so there’s room for error which is great for learning.”

Like most students, Tom worked hard, but he also played hard. And so, the idea of a mobile catering business came about.

“I like going to festivals, and I just wanted to be a part of that kind of atmosphere,” he says.

It was a vintage Rice horsebox for sale on Gumtree that caught Tom’s eye as he considered his next step towards the hospitality industry. However, with little to no knowledge of how to convert his purchase into a ‘lean, mean pizza machine’, the young entrepreneur needed help.

Thankfully, his dad, Jamie, is a technician in the Air Force, and, whilst aircraft engines are a bit different to wood-fired pizza ovens, the father-son team soon figured out what they had to do.

“It was all go for a year and a half,” Tom recalls. “I went to college, I had a part-time job working in Crump’s alongside that and then any spare moment we had was spent converting the trailer. There was a lot to think about and it was a lot harder than I think we anticipated, but it was good fun.”

Then came Covid.

After months of dedication (and a ‘messy’ 18th birthday working in Bar Antojo in Seville), coronavirus arrived and forced the calling off of Tom’s first Pizza Revolution booking at the Cirencester Youth Market.

“It was horrible. We’d been working to that first date for two years,” he reflects.

What’s more, as households across the country spent the beginning of 2020 fighting for food at the supermarket, the Will family had the opposite problem.

“When they gave me a call to say it was off, I’d already bought all my food and started prepping it,” Tom explains. “We had to use a lot of weird ingredients in our family cooking!”

At the same time, Will’s Pizza Revolution had to find a new way to start. That is, whilst trying not to think about the eight cancelled bookings at Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge’s Pub in the Park summer festival, where 5,000 children per event could have sampled the horsebox’s menu.

Initially, it seemed the only solution was for Tom to join the rest of the nation in working from home.

“I was delivering leaflets for like six hours a day in between prepping,” he reveals. “Then, on my drive, it was deliveries in a really small area of Bassett.”

The system worked, but it couldn’t last forever. With a survey by the Events Industry Forum and Business Visits and Events Partnership finding that 60% of the UK’s event industry’s supplier base was facing collapse within three months, it looked as though Will’s Pizza Revolution might be over before it had even begun.

But there’s nothing like a pandemic to bring people together.

“I think, at the minute, everyone’s just trying to help each other out in the food business,” Tom suggests. “I contacted Marsh Farm Hotel and the guys there are incredible. They didn’t want anything from me, and they still don’t now.”

Since getting in touch with the hotel in the UK’s first national lockdown, the culinary enthusiast has not only bagged a weekly slot serving his grub there, but at nearby pubs like The Bug & Spider in Calne too.

“I’ve been going to quite a few pubs and doing their food which has been working really well. On our busiest day we did 150 orders and on our busiest weekend we did 250, so it’s happy days!” he says.

At first, the Pizza Revolution bubble operated a drive-through service to customers around the county. Today, to comply with Lockdown 3.0 rules, their ever-evolving menu is available with a socially distanced pager system inspired by a Will family visit to a local café.

Of course, battling with coronavirus restrictions has made Tom’s first year of business an unexpectedly challenging one. Nevertheless, it appears they may actually have been a blessing in disguise.

“Lockdown has allowed me to start slow and work my way up rather than just being in the thick of it which has been nice,” reflects the business owner. “I think if you’re presented with a great opportunity, though, you have to just accept it and figure out a way to pull it off.”

So, what does the future hold for Tom and his pizza revolution?

“Big question!” he exclaims. “Long term, I want to join the reserves in the Air Force, but obviously I want to continue with the pizzas. I almost bought a second trailer the other day – a fleet of them would be nice, serving all over Wiltshire and the country.”

As for the other big question in any pizza chef’s life…

“Pineapple on pizza?” considers Tom. “From a business side of things, I’ll make what people will pay for. But no, not at all.” For more information, visit willspizzarevolution.co.uk or visit their Facebook and Instagram.