º£½ÇÊÓƵ

The chef and owner of Thyme Out Food Co in Manchester is bringing a taste of Italy to people’s home with the launch of his at-home Neapolitan pizza kit.

Following the lockdown and the closure of all hospitality businesses, Ben Hayes decided to utilise his pizza making skills and use his existing commercial kitchen, creating a range of Neapolitan home make and bake pizza kits.

The Dough-Re-Me pizzas are created using ingredients sourced directly from Italy.

Each kit comes complete with all the ingredients to make two Neapolitan margherita pizzas including hand-made 48-hour naturally fermented Caputo flour pizza dough, its signature tomato sauce, made using only San Marzano tomatoes, and fior di latte mozzarella.

Finishing touches include extra virgin olive oil, organic basil, Malden sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper.

Ben, a chef for some 20 years, launched Thyme Out Food Co in 2006. Shortly after opening, the team began offering outside catering for weddings, corporates, and private functions, alongside in-house casual dining, and deli offerings.

In 2016, Ben opened a commercial kitchen in Heaton Mersey, Stockport enabling the expansion of his outside catering business acquiring a portable wood burning pizza oven in the process to be able to offer a more informal menu to his customers.

He said: “Like many people up and down the country I love pizza, it is after all the original convenience food.