When pizza cravings kick in, many in Beijing count on Jade Gray to satisfy their taste buds with an assortment of traditional and innovative mouth-watering options. His Gung Ho! chain in the Chinese capital has a loyal community of pizza pundits seeking to get their carb fix and experiment with toppings. But 22 years ago, when the man first arrived to China from a small town in New Zealand, putting a chef's hat and running a successful restaurant were not in the cards for him.

Gray left Twizel, in New Zealand's South Island, in the summer break of 1996, after having covered around 50 countries in his family travels. His destination this time was Harbin, in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang, which he reached with 4,000 yuan in his pocket and a fearless sense of exploration. He was one of few foreign faces at the time, and recalls being stopped on the streets by curious locals. 

Gray worked as a ski instructor for two months, but his business acumen, which he gained at home thanks to his entrepreneurial father who ran a local chain supermarket, led him to sniff out lucrative opportunities in a market that was undergoing tectonic changes.

Gray opened a fitness center in 2000, and his business flourished for two years before crumbling overnight. “I felt very bad. Beijing was my home and I didn't want to leave,” Gray said.

But it was times of fast and significant changes for the country. Beijing had just won its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games and China was already a member of the World Trade Organization rolling out further reform policies and opening its door to foreign investment.

The country was slowly coming out of its shell, and Gray saw an opportunity in the food and beverage sector, even though he was neither a barista nor a chef. “I felt that pizza had a real future in China,” he stated. 

In a country that values sharing food on the dining table, the pizza seemed to tick all the right boxes. “You put pizza in the middle of the table. It's round, people reach in, there are lots of side dishes. I felt it was very suitable for the Chinese culture,” Gray noted.

So Grey set his own business, fashioning the doughy concoctions after what his mother used to bake in her wood-fired oven when he was a child but giving them a New Zealand twist.

As more multinationals entered the Chinese market, local competitors stepped up their game and industry standards got higher. Today, there is room in the market for bold ideas, and experimental concepts but with the competition heating up, high risks also bring about high rewards.

Director: Zhang Yan

Editors: Zhang Yan, Wang Yulian

Filmed by: James Zhang

Designers: Yu Peng, Yin Yating

Article Written by: Angelina Qu, James Zhang

Copy Editors: Nadim Diab, Henry Weimin Zheng

Producer: Wen Yaru

Chief Editor: Chen Ran

Supervisor: Zhang Shilei