Meet Jules, meet Koen! Two young lads, passionate about food and entrepreneurship. They jumped on the ‘hype train’ of the food trucks with their fire bread food stall. It’s been a journey, and they’ve only just begun. Time for a little chitchat about how it all began and where they see themselves in the future.
Koen and Jules are childhood buddies. They both wanted to change track. Koen quit his job as a salesman; Jules wanted something else than his 9-to-5-office job at the Belgian embassy in London. Both with an economical university background, starting their own business seemed like a dream. Jules did some research online on young starters and booming industries overseas and bumped into the food truck industry, which is slowly conquering Belgium. Both passionate about food, they found their dream. They discovered the shortage of pizza food trucks in Belgium and, both fond of Italian food, was born: fire breads freshly made in a wood oven food stall.
Doppio, a strange name for a food truck? It isn’t. It is derived from Doppio Zero. In fact, Doppio Zero was the elected name, but they had to change it to Doppio because of competition issues. ‘Doppio Zero’ means double zero in Italian and refers to the manner of milling. The flour is grinded two times. ‘Doppio’ sounds short and sweet, and it even has a double meaning. Two friends, two ‘zeros’ starting from nothing, dropped the zero because they already learned a lot. What stays is the ‘double’: double pleasure and double flavour by two close friends.
Fire breads are somewhat different from pizzas. They are smaller than pizza and Koen and Jules invented a special base for it. They wanted to be unique and bend the down points of pizza. It’s cheaper than a whole pizza, it’s made in no time and it’s easier to eat on the streets because of its size and crusty dough. So all in favour of the customer! They use real quality products for their fire breads, preceded by an enormous research in all the local shops and tested by family and friends. The most recent invented fire bread is the ‘purista’, with a special passata created by themselves.
They did some workshops in Belgium and viewed tons of YouTube videos on ‘how to make the perfect pizza’, because classes in the Italian pizza schools were unfortunately way above their budget. They did some try-outs, with success! The reactions were more than positive and they took in all the feedback they could.
To be correct, we should call Doppio a ‘food stall’. It’s a DIY stall build around a truck. This makes Doppio more flexible and creatively adaptable to circumstances. The stall can visually be changed and adapted to the event, fully tailored to the wishes of the customer. And! They try to be corporate socially responsible. The wood they use for their oven and stall is recycled wood from a furniture factory, their business cards will be printed on recycled paper, their prosecco glasses are made of biodegradable plastic and they use biological, local products.
If you ask me, Doppio is a must-visit! Unfortunately due to technical issues you won't find them on this edition of the food truck market at Steenplein from 21st until 25th of May. But don't worry they'll serve you their tasty breads on the next edition. Or you might find them on Mechelseplein, Troonplaats and Dageraadplaats where they applied for a spot. So keep your eyes open! You no longer have to go look for food; great food will find you.
Text by Lize Colson
Pics by Uni Mog Sound and Doppio