Revolving Gas Pizza Oven Eases Budget’s Pressure on Restaurant Budgets

Restaurants, pubs and other eateries considering early 2025 refurbishments may have been considering a wood-fired pizza oven as a new money spinner and menu asset.  But, since the Autumn 2024 ‘Rachel Reeves’ budget, perhaps the requirement to keep a watchful eye on wages and staffing levels is also imperative. So, is there a solution to both scenarios?

Inspired by one of its customers, who has just contributed to a case study, Orchard Ovens believes there is.  The customer in question is a mobile caterer and his feedback about his Valoriani oven is that it has become a transformer of his business.  Why?  Well, because he does not have to have a member of the team constantly standing next to it, monitoring the pizza cooking and manually turning pizzas.

This is because he has benefited, just as any restaurant or pub can, from the Rotativo oven – a Valoriani oven solely available in the UK through Orchard Ovens.  This is a superb, super-efficient rotating pizza oven, powered by gas but cooking pizza on a par with anything that can be turned out of a Valoriani wood-fired oven.

Valoriani standards are sky-high when it comes to pizza, so if the world’s leading gurus in pizza oven manufacturer believe their gas-fired pizza shows no detectable difference from that cooked the wood-fired way, you can place your trust in this oven.

The Rotativo incorporates a first-class gas burner - a 10-burner Spitfire device – which is so efficient that the oven requires only one burner rather than the usual two.  Energy costs are further reduced by this oven requiring no additional electrical support and thus no electricity usage.

But the fact no manual turning of pizza is needed is where the commercial kitchen manpower can be controlled.  From a rotating control panel, the chef simply selects a speed option and allows the rotating floor to take over, cooking pizza easily and evenly.

Once the pizza is ready, an audible signal alerts the chef, who can have been preparing other food, rather than having to watch over and turn pizzas. Eight or nine larger (30/32cm) pizzas can be cooked simultaneously, in 70-90 seconds, making the labour efficiency of this oven tremendous.

This even extends to clean-down. Cooking debris deposited on the oven floor falls into a drawer, which can be removed and emptied in seconds.

The oven also benefits from an in-built, patented RHS (recycled heating system), which reclaims heat generated during cooking and blows it back under the oven floor.  This ensures stability of temperature in the oven floor but also saves on energy.  There is less need to pull in new energy, to maintain temperature, as the recycled heat is doing the heavy lifting. With the best insulation too, energy costs can actually be reduced by up to 30%.

The professionally, well-constructed oven benefits from having no cement in the formulation used for the baking floor, which comprises pure minerals, pressed together and furnace-baked for 16 hours, at a temperature of 1300°C.  Both floor and dome are produced by Valoriani artisans, with stringent quality controls in place. The oven’s shell is made from unique refractory ‘cotto’ clay, with exactly the right amount of alumina to produce an optimised firing-up of the oven.

And with a choice of either a contemporary metal-covered oven or the classic dome shape, rendered and coloured as desired, or finished in hand-applied mosaic, this oven can fit right in, no matter what the refurb aesthetic.

Orchard Ovens’ Andrew Manciocchi says, “We have had a major focus on energy costs over the past year and now labour costs within a professional kitchen are in the spotlight thanks to Rachel Reeves’s budget.  Thankfully, the Rotativo commercial gas-fired pizza oven from Valoriani can tackle both cost centres, offering significant positive impacts on both.

“With a long anticipated lifespan, depending on how and how often it is used, it is an investment that makes sense for a restaurant and an answer to many eateries’ cost-saving prayers.” 

Call Orchard Ovens on 07743 847647 if you want to know more about the labour and energy-saving commercial gas-fired Rotativo revolving pizza oven and incorporate it into your commercial kitchen refurb.

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Editors notes

Orchard Ovens is the domestic and commercial pizza oven supplier in the UK of Valoriani, based in Reggello, Tuscany - the manufacturer of Italy's hugely respected Valoriani pizza ovens, known as the Maserati of pizza ovens and the kings of clay. These ovens are made from superb refractory clay - cotto clay - found in the family's quarry and unique, thanks to having just the right alumina. This allows Valoriani ovens to heat up quickly and retain heat superbly, bring huge advantages to homeowners, as well as restaurant owners, hotels, pubs, mobile caterers, pizzerias, takeaways and more.

Orchard Ovens supplies some of Britain's best-known restaurants and chefs, whilst it is also a specialist creator of outdoor kitchens and wood-fired oven builds for the rich and famous, as well as everyday homeowners wishing to add value to their home and enjoy an outdoor lifestyle to the full.