Starting a pizza van in the UK: the complete guide
To trade pizza from a van in the UK you need three things before you serve anybody: registration with the local authority at least 28 days ahead (free), a gas safety certificate from a Gas Safe engineer registered for LPG and mobile catering, and permission to stand wherever you intend to stand. Budget roughly £18,000–£60,000 to start, depending almost entirely on whether the oven and the vehicle are new.
Register the business — 28 days, free
Anyone who sells, cooks, stores, handles, prepares or distributes food must register as a food business with their local authority, and a mobile unit is explicitly covered. Registration is free, cannot be refused, and must happen at least 28 days before you trade.
Register with the authority where the van is kept, not where you trade. If you work across several council areas from one base, you register once — but each authority can still inspect you while you are in its patch.
Gas: the one that stops you trading
LPG in a catering vehicle is its own competence. The engineer must be Gas Safe registered and hold the specific categories for LPG, non-domestic and mobile catering — an ordinary domestic boiler engineer is not qualified to certify your van and their certificate will not be accepted.
The certificate is annual. Event organisers, markets and most councils will ask to see it before they let you set up, so it is worth keeping a photo of it on your phone. If you are buying a second-hand unit, make the sale conditional on a current gas and electrical certificate.
Where you are allowed to stand
There is no single national permission, and this is where most plans meet reality. Which one applies depends on the ground you park on:
- Public highway or council land — a street trading consent or licence from that council. Cost, availability and waiting time vary enormously between authorities, and some designate streets where trading is prohibited outright.
- Private land — the landowner's permission. A pub car park, an industrial estate, a farm shop. Check whether planning permission is needed for regular trading; councils differ on how many days a year is "temporary".
- Markets and events — the organiser's pitch fee, and they will ask for your certificates and public liability insurance.
Secure the pitch before you buy the van. A beautiful unit with nowhere legal to park is the most expensive mistake in this trade.
What it costs to start
| Item | Used / modest | New / high spec |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle or trailer | £4,000 – 12,000 | £25,000 – 45,000 |
| Pizza oven (gas or wood) | £2,000 – 5,000 | £6,000 – 15,000 |
| Fridges, prep counter, dough kit | £1,500 – 3,500 | £4,000 – 8,000 |
| Gas + electrical certification | £200 – 500 | £200 – 500 |
| Insurance (public liability, vehicle) | £600 – 1,500 / yr | £900 – 2,500 / yr |
| Level 2 Food Safety training | £20 – 100 | £20 – 100 |
| Initial stock and packaging | £500 – 1,200 | £500 – 1,200 |
| Website and Google listing | £0 – 400 | £0 – 400 |
Indicative UK ranges, September 2026. Ovens and vehicles dominate the spread; everything else is comparatively fixed.
The two numbers that move the total are the vehicle and the oven. A sound second-hand van with a good used gas oven gets you trading for under £20,000; the same business with a new build-out is three times that and makes exactly the same pizza.
The rest of the paperwork
- Food safety management — a written system based on HACCP principles. The FSA's Safer Food, Better Business pack is free and is what most inspectors expect to see.
- Allergen information — all 14, and in writing if you take orders by phone or online.
- Waste carrier registration with the Environment Agency if you move your own commercial waste, plus a trade waste contract. Used cooking oil has its own disposal route.
- Public liability insurance — not legally required, but no event or market will let you trade without it.
- Employer's liability insurance — legally required the moment you employ anyone, including casually at weekends.
Being findable when you move
A van's hardest problem is not cooking. It is that your customers do not know where you are tonight. Two things fix most of it: a Google Business listing kept genuinely current, and one page of your own with this week's pitches and your menu — a link you can put in an Instagram bio and on the side of the van.
Social posts disappear down a feed within hours. A page with a stable address does not, and it is the thing a search engine can actually read.