Innovation

The way Pixza works is through two main programs and developing a third one to expand their social impact:

1. "The Route of Change" This program exists to provide employment for young people, in social abandonment, in the pizzeria so they can achieve three main objectives: Achieve independent living , establishment of professional and personal goals through a coaching program and reduce educational lag through practical educational courses (cooking, music, etc).

2."Horno Social" Crowdfunding platform to support other social entrepreneurs to develop a campaign in the pizzeria where they co-create a "pizza slice" and all of the revenues derived from the customers that ordered the new pizza are given to the social entrepreneur to fund their initiative. As a return, the entrepreneur has to employ at least one of the graduates from the Route of Change program, this is a win-win program for all stakeholders involved in the process.

3. "Institute for Development" This is a medium- and long-term program to develop homeless young people from shelters in Mexico City. It consists of a three-month intensive program to develop the personal and professional skills for working in a restaurant, creating a pool of specialized potential employees for the restaurant industry, where the employee rotation in Mexico is almost 100%. This would be a unique platform to provide trained employees for the industry within a centralized process and a platform via app with a scalable social impact and also generating profits by charging a fee to companies that hire trained employees within the institute.

Inspiration

Alejandro has been a social entrepreneur for several years now. The idea came up in NYC, when he was studying there, he had an assignment to choose a person whose background was interesting to be told. He followed a guy who overcame a homeless situation for six months, and he was now helping other people in the same situation by working in a shelter. When Alejandro put together this interest with his social entrepreneur spirit, he started to develop the idea of a 100% Mexican product in a restaurant where he can employ people in this situation (homeless or social abandonment).

Overall impact

The product (the blue corn pizza) is really profitable, since the beginning. Blue corn is cheaper than wheat and this allowed that after the fourth month of operation the Pizzeria got a full return of the initial investment. Also it has created several employment offers. But the whole program has a goal beyond that employment offer. The idea is to reincorporate these youngsters into the society in a productive way. With every new branch of Pixza, there is only the chance to create four new jobs. But in the long term, the idea is to create a training institute where these people can get the skills to find a job in the service industry and not only as Pixza employees.

Business benefit

This innovation helps to always have trained personnel for their pizzerias and the ability to continue growing their business and their revenues, since the training institute will charge a fee for the restaurants that employ the trained personnel.

Social and environmental benefit

With the training institute, Alejandro is looking to change the rules of the service industry where the rotation rate is over 100% by offering trained and skillful people and at the same time giving a second chance for homeless people to be productive and get economic independence.

Interview

Alejandro Souza, Owner & Manager