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Canadian pizza business General Assembly Pizza has secured its first dedicated facility for the production of its frozen pizzas, in an effort to meet increased retail demand.
Located in Vaughan, Ontario, the facility will produce GA Pizza’s par-baked, naturally leavened freezer-to-table pizzas. Prior to this, the company was manufacturing its frozen pizzas from its flagship restaurant.
Shifting consumer packaged goods production to this new facility will enable GA Pizza to ramp up its restaurant operations and reopen its flagship location for dine-in and off-premise in the third quarter.
GA Pizza has signed a seven-year lease with Pure Industrial, giving it possession of the 42,060 square-foot facility.
The facility will undergo a full renovation and phased development of a production line, including an initial line that is expected to increase daily production capacity by 150% to 5,000 units per day by the end of Q3 2021. GA Pizza plans to ramp up to 10,00 units per day by year end.
GA Pizza’s new facility is expected to be fully operational in 2022, with an expected production capacity of 50,000 units per day – representing a 2,400% increase from its current capacity.
The Ontario site will house production, refrigerated storage, retail warehousing and wholesale distribution, as well as office space and an R&D hub called The Dough Lab.
According to GA Pizza, the production facility will expand its wholesale partnerships across Canada. The company anticipates that more than 50% of its future production will be allocated to retail and wholesale sales, compared to 20% year-to-date.
“In our current model – producing our frozen pizzas from our flagship restaurant – capacity has been constrained with demand greatly outpacing supply, so the timing couldn’t be better,” said Ali Khan Lalani, CEO and founder of General Assembly Pizza.
“The master production facility will allow GA Pizza to scale production significantly and meet our growing wholesale and consumer demand – not to mention the benefits of operating at scale and reactivating our restaurant and off-premise channels.”
Earlier this year, GA Pizza raised around $10 million in a Series A financing round, with the aim to scale up its pizza subscription service across Canada.