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1. Martin Hanan acts as Managing Director, with specific responsibility for sales and marketing. He has extensive experience and a strong background in manufacture, sales and marketing of fast moving consumer goods. Initiated manufacturing start- ups in both Ireland and South Africa. A Former Ernst and Young Sponsored Young Entrepreneur of the Year, he has served as Sales Coordinator with Cantrell and Cochrane, Sales Manager with Rowa Pharmaceuticals, CEO of Internet Business Ireland and Managing Director of Martins Natural Foods. He first became a shareholder and was appointed Managing Director of the Alternative Pizza Company in late 2005.

2. Marc Rafferty has a BSc degree in business from Trinity College Dublin, graduating in 1995. Marc returned to Ireland in 2005 after 10 years experience gained working in the US and Holland with innovative SMEs. Since then Marc has been a socially conscious and community driven entrepreneur having owned, managed and grown Irish brands and companies such as http://www.gocar.ie, http://www.ebow.ie, The Real Olive Company and Alchemy Marketing. His expertise will be invaluable in developing a community around the Alternative brand and in international business development for the company.

3. Frank Dineen specific responsibility is to manage the finance and administration for all aspects of the business for APC. Frank is a qualified CIMA Accountant with extensive experience in many early stage start-ups. He currently acts for, among others, Sage Business accounting systems.

EXISTING

Spicy Pepperoni
Hand Stretched unique thin base pizza with spicy tomato sauce, Irish Mozzarella, Irish Chorizo, cream cheese.
Crispy Bacon
Hand Stretched unique thin base pizza with our own tomato Sauce, Irish Mozzarella, Irish Dry Cure Bacon, onions, mushrooms and cream cheese.
Four Irish Cheeses
Hand Stretched unique thin base pizza with tomato sauce, Irish Mozzarella, Four Selected Irish Cheeses – Gubeen, Cashel Blue, Durrus and Glenilen cream cheese.
Whole-meal Vegetarian
Hand Stretched unique wholemeal base pizza with tomato sauce, Irish Mozzarella, red onions, peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, Glenilen cream cheese and Parmesan.
COMING SOON!

Garlic Bread

Gluten Free Range

UNDER DEVELOPMENT!!
Smoked Salmon & Fennel
Irish Smoked Salmon, our own delicious Tomato and Fennel Sauce, Mozzarella, Cream Cheese and Parmesan.
Hot Chilli
Hand Stretched thin base pizza made with our own delicious Spicy Tomato Sauce, Mozzarella, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Cream Cheese and Parmesan Cheese.
Black Pudding and Provencal Sauce
Hand stretched thin based pizza with his own delicious Spicy Tomato sauce, Mozzarella, Black Pudding, cream cheese and Parmesan.
Bacon & Cabbage
Hand stretched thin base unique authentic Irish – Style pizza with our own delicious Tomato Sauce, Mozzarella, Sliced Bacon, Cream Cheese, Parmesan Cheese and Cabbage.

The humble Pizza -particularly the frozen variety- is the ultimate in cheap and cheerful food; which is not surprising considering its origins in Italy as a delicious easy to prepare ‘peasant’ food. Little wonder 35 m Frozen Pizzas are sold every year in Ireland and 250m in the UK. Further afield a staggering 2 bn pizzas are sold every year in America

Four years ago, Martin Hanan had a simple straight forward business idea; a designer gourmet pizza that contained the finest of premium artisan ingredients, from Burren Smokehouse Salmon to Gubbeen Irish Cheese.

Considering the economic climate at the time, his prospects of success selling an over the counter premium food product looked very bleak indeed.

Regardless, Hanan travelled the country selling to one shop at a time. Four years on, Cork City based, Alternative Pizza Company now produces 2,000 frozen pizzas a week with plans to double capacity this year.

With turnover having long exceeded his best expectations, the Alternative Pizza Company is now in the process of exporting to the world.

The Alternative Pizza Company was originally founded in 2004 by chef, Dave Flynn. Hanan later join the firm and stayed until it changed hands.

However, when the new owners went into liquidation he decided to buy the company, lock stock and barrel. Martin Hanan takes up the story:

“When I became involved in 2005, I helped them to build up the business, and at the time we were selling to Harrods in London. The company was then bought over and I sold my shares and left. The new owners went into liquidation in 2008 and in 2010 I purchased the brand and recipes and website from the liquidator.”

Under Martin Hanan’s management the company went from strength to strength and now has a very healthy turnover:

“Our unique selling point is that we use all natural Irish ingredients; ingredients such as dry cured bacon from Enniscorthy. We don’t use any preservatives or additives and the pizzas are handmade.”

“We have four core pizza products: Spicy Pepperoni which is made of Gubbeen Cheese is the most popular. We also have other pizzas which we can run up at short notice such as Smoked Salmon and Goats Cheese for the Christmas market and Bacon and Cabbage pizza.

The costs of making the pizzas are just too big so they are outsourced to a company in Derrylin, County Fermanagh.”

“This year I expect to sell over 100,000 pizzas. I have over 100 customers in Ireland; high end independents such as Donnybrook Fair and Fallon and Byrne. I supply ten Dunnes Stores outlets as well and high end customers in the UK. I am also supplying a retailer in Hong Kong called Dairy Farm which is bigger than the entire Irish grocery market.”

Martin Hanan left school at 17 and by the age of 19 was exporting containers of sausages to the UK. He later started selling hand wipes to airlines and eventually opened a factory in Cape Town, South Africa, manufacturing a range of wipes for the catering industry and opticians who retailed them as reading glass wipes.

Although he once employed 22 in South Africa, he is now a one man company and competing very successfully against colossal pizza manufacturers who are forever engaged in savage cost cutting drives in the hope of dominating the market:

“They are always running offers such as buy one and get one free and incurring huge losses; so I have had to be a guerrilla marketer. It has taken me three years to get this formula right. I have a solid export focused plan to build this Business from 2000 Pizzas a week to 10,000 pizzas a week in a 48-month timeframe. As for the future, I see great potential overseas for premium Irish food,” added Martin Hanan.

As the old saying goes ‘if you can imagine it you can do it.’

Sunday Indo Business

Alternative Pizza Company Delivers Goods in time for St. Patrick’s Day in Hong Kong

Friday March 2nd 2012: The gourmet Irish Alternative Pizza Company has just secured and dispatched it first order to the giant pan-Asian retailer Dairy Farm Group. Alternative pizzas will be hitting the shelves in Hong Kong in time for St. Patrick’s Day.

Cork based CEO of the pizza company, Martin Hanan secured the deal as a result of  Bord Bia’s Marketplace 2012 event which took place at Dublin’s International Conference Center in early February. Describing a whirlwind week, Hanan explained, “the order was confirmed last Friday, we sent the pro-forma invoice on Monday which was paid on Tuesday and the pizzas were dispatched on Wednesday bound for Hong Kong. It’s fantastic to think a $9 billion business will be showcasing the best of artisan Irish food products on a Pizza made in Ireland in one of the busiest retail markets in the world”.

Dairy Farm were impressed by the company’s commitment to using the highest quality ingredients by partnering with local food brands like The Gubeen Smoke House, Ummera  Smoked Bacon, Cashel Blue Cheese and Glenillen Farm, the Alternative Pizza Company creates mouthwatering food packaged in a distinctive brown box that is remarkable in its category for its simplicity. For Hanan, the deal struck represented the value of events such as Marketplace, organised by Bord Bia to bring international buyers and Irish food producers together for one day to generate new business and network.

Established in 1886 by Scotsman Sir Patrick Manson to supply Hong Kong with fresh milk, the Dairy Farm Group has grown to become one of the region’s largest retailers employing 81,000 employees and operating 5,250 stores across a number of retail formats including supermarkets, foodhalls and delicatessens.

Founded in 2004, the Alternative Pizza Company identified a niche for high-quality handmade pizzas using innovative recipes with choice ingredients. Dedicated to using the highest quality toppings, all sourced locally in Ireland, each recipe transforms the humble pizza into a showcase for the best of Irish foods. Available nationwide in delicatessens and high end retailers, the company aims to expand production in 2012 with an eye on the UK market as well as the Far East.

END

For more information about gourmet Irish pizzas please visit the website http://www.alternativepizza.ie or for business enquiries contact CEO Martin Hanan via email, martin@alternativepizza.ie    or  on 087-7422315