Frozen supplier Poole’s Pies is preparing to enter the chilled pies and pastry market next year - and claims it will be able to undercut rivals by as much as half.

The company, which recently won a £3m contract to supply Iceland with own-label and branded meat and fruit pies and will supply 13 own-label SKUs to Asda from next month, plans to have its chilled operation running by September.

MD Neil Court-Johnston claimed Poole’s prices would be around half that of current chilled manufacturers. “Chilled pies are generally twice the price of a frozen product but the cost of making a chilled pie is identical to a frozen pie,” he said. “Even when you add in wastage and extra distribution costs it doesn’t come close to doubling the price.”

Poole’s has invested £3.5m in a Rademaker machine to produce chilled sausage rolls, Cornish pasties, slices, turnovers and lattice bars. The machine can produce 50,000 sausage rolls an hour, which Court-Johnston said made it 10 times faster than other machines. “It just blows away anybody in terms of capacity and quality,” he added. “The sausage rolls and pasties come off like bullets.”

The company is currently seeking listings for a Mumbai pie it developed for the private birthday party of Betfred owner Fred Done. “We all know what a good curry is, but you just cannot get a decent curry pie,” said Court-Johnston. “We were so pleased with these that we’re taking them out to retailers.”

Topics