Prior to Pure Pie, Michael worked as a chef in restaurants and hotels in New Zealand, London and Melbourne, with his last full time role being head chef at a popular café in Carlisle Street St. Kilda, Melbourne.
Michael describes himself as a lover of good food and cooking but never one for chasing the high profile chef role. Developing, running and building a pie business, he’s learnt, is his true calling.
It was in 2012 that Michael and his wife Holly officially started the business, with research (including non-stop pie making, recipe testing and market research) all taking place in 2011. They started out in a small shared commercial kitchen in April 2012, located just next to their now well-established Pure Pie store on Bay Street, Port Melbourne. As soon as they outgrew this kitchen, the expanding team moved to a larger kitchen in Geelong.
After 5 years they now have a busy retail store, a busy kitchen of several staff who carefully make all products by hand, a long list of happy stockists and regular appearances at farmers’ markets around Melbourne (where, by the way, pies and sausage rolls disappear quickly, I recommend you go early!).
One Tuesday late morning I visited Michael at their Bay Street store, and in between customers dropping in and suppliers delivering ingredients, we had a chat about how Pure Pie all began and why Michael’s pies are so incredibly good.
So how did this all begin?
Well, I’m a chef and Holly my wife is a graphic designer.. it seemed like a good match to start a business. Holly is the driven one. I used to make pies at home quite often, and would play around with things, and I guess we just all loved them. One day Holly said – “why don’t you make pies and try selling them?”. So we tried it. At first I was working full time as a chef, and would just make them at home.. we’d just had one child, and then another came along at the start of the business, so with 2 kids under 2, ha (he laughs), it was a challenge. Trying to start a business, working full time, Holly was at home with the kids, and we were living in an apartment in St Kilda, the timing wasn’t great, but it just felt right.
So we started tramping the streets, Holly designed the brand and came up with the name. It’s simple and pure and that’s what our pies are about.
Carefully made using pure wholesome ingredients..
Yes.
Actually, on your website you state: ‘The concept is simple, source local ingredients, and put it together with love and care’..
Well that’s it. Keep it simple and pure, quality control, you can’t beat good quality ingredients, and we just love supporting local producers.
Speaking of local producers, do you consistently buy ingredients from certain producers?
We try to, as much as possible. We did change our beef supplier about 18months ago, but we had to, to continue to create beautiful pies that are also affordable for our customers. Our pies cost a lot to make, we’re getting the best beef, making them by hand, supporting local producers, we’re not buying the cheapest ingredients, so if the cost of certain ingredients becomes way too high we need to shift to make sure we’re still producing a top product. Ingredients need to be really good, but our products also need to be affordable. It has to be sustainable.
We have great relationships with our suppliers, which is also important to us. And actually farmers’ markets have been great for this. We’ve met so many incredible producers. It’s been really cool, a few times we’ve just got chatting with a farmer, then tried their product, it’s been so easy sometimes, it’s great. We’ve visited our suppliers, and brought the kids too. Relationships are so important and you learn all that through the farmers’ markets. That’s what we love about farmers’ markets.
So, farmers’ markets have helped in various ways, for you as a business..?
Oh, it’s been SO good. I mean for example, with the Flemington Farmers’ market, we always return with bagels, they’re just so good [Michael’s referring to Five n’ Dime Bagels], and if the Lamb guy doesn’t sell everything – for example if he has lamb meat I’ll always purchase some, make it into mince and put it in our sausage rolls. It’s such good lamb. And you know I put his name on them and proudly sell them because I know exactly where the lamb comes from, and then you know if a customer then visits him after trying a sausage roll and raves about his lamb, well that’s awesome.
That IS awesome.
You’re promoting other producers…
Definitely. We proudly put our producer’s names on our products.
I’m aware that you’ve actually won a pretty prestigious award, which recognizes your superb use of local produce..
Yes. We won the gold medal artisan producer award for ‘from the paddock’ meaning we were representing Gippsland natural beef as the primary producer. It was for our beef, red wine and rosemary pie. Oh and yes the judges were Maggie beer, Matt Moran and Matt Preston. That was pretty cool.
So cool! [I was most certainly going to try one of those]
Do you feel that people and the general community know that all your products are made by hand, that almost 100% of all ingredients are local and that you so proudly support and promote other producers?
Well, I guess we’re so busy making pies (he grins) so customers I hope can see this through reading our website, seeing our packaging and also I mean the fact that we can sell our product at accredited farmers markets means that our product is essentially made up of more than 90% local ingredients. Down to the salt, the salt we use is the Mount Zero salt. So we try to use the most local as much as we can, and I mean it’s better, you can taste it. We use Victorian flour, butter, everything we can. I mean there are little things that you can’t source locally such as worcestershire sauce as it’s made in England, and well it is the best. Sugar is also a tricky one.
With our cherry pies, when cherries aren’t in season we use frozen berries but they’re still Victorian, grown locally then frozen. In season we’ll use fresh ones.
You can certainly taste the difference.
Yeah.
Michael, we (my partner and I) are seriously addicted to your cherry pies!..
Yeah, they’re good aren’t they (he grins)
They’re soooo good. The pastry – it’s not overly sweet..
Yeah you’ve got to get the balance right. I’m also not a huge sweet tooth so the cherry pie is my favourite; I add a little lemon juice so they have that little bit of sharpness.
There’s a bit of work involved, you obviously have several kitchen staff?
Yes, we’ve got a crew that work in the kitchen. Our kitchen’s in Geelong, so I travel between Geelong and here [that is, the store in Port Melbourne]. We started out the back and couldn’t sustain it so now we have a bigger kitchen.
[At this point a poultry producer entered the store, with 2 very large punnets of strawberries.. this poultry producer usually delivers eggs, but this time arrived bearing his neighbour’s produce – incredible gigantic strawberries, which he delivers to various business owners on occasion. So for a moment we chatted about these strawberries and I was lucky to try one, they would have to be the best I’ve ever tried! I learnt that the grower only grows enough for their local suppliers in country Victoria and a few good friends including Michael]
You now have quite a list of Melbourne stockists, are you gradually accruing more and more?
Wholesale has been tricky for us, because our product costs so much to make. We’ve priced ourselves out of the market for a lot of places, a lot of people have approached us saying that they’ve heard about our pies but once we give them the wholesale price they feel that they just can’t make their margin.
Basically we had a big push at the start, when I was making my pies here [in the small commercial kitchen in Port Melbourne], and we had the farmers’ markets to sell direct to the public. We had a distributor and a sales person and Holly was also involved in tramping the streets giving samples out, we accrued a good core group of customers at the beginning who have stuck with us.
But because it costs so much to make our products we’re looking more down the retail path now, it’s just tricky for other stores to make their margin. You have to look at it from an economic perspective too. At the end of the day, the most important thing for us is the integrity of the product and the consistency, it’s just gotta stay the same. We can’t slip. And customer service. It’s all so important, and having a good relationship with our customers and suppliers.
Repeat business is what keeps us going. That’s the boost, when people come back and say ‘we love your product’, it motivates us to keep doing it. And you know if we receive a complaint it does hurt, I hate for anyone to walk away unhappy, so we do our best to ensure we provide the absolute best, but we’re pretty lucky, 98% of people are happy, and if we can keep it like that then I’m happy.
I wanted to ask you about your new retail venture – a second store and also café, right? In the city?
Yes, well Docklands essentially. It’s still in the planning stages, but we have a site.
We have a good base, so now we feel we can support another venue, but we also just don’t know, there’s a bit of guess-timating, you just have to back yourself.
And if you have the passion, and belief, you can make it work. But we’ve worked hard, I mean there were times where we really didn’t know. At the beginning we we’re putting in so much work, and we just didn’t know. But we’ve had steady growth and such good feedback so continuing to grow makes sense.
It would be tough, with overheads, and you’re dealing with food, with perishables..
Yeah.
It must take a certain person, and with 2 kids under 2!
That was the stupidest part! (he laughs), to start at the time we did, it was crazy. The first couple of years were really tough. But it’s those little steps. When we accrued new stockists and we opened this little shop, every step is a big morale boost, you just don’t know what’s around the corner. And you just have to be patient. We tried to get into Gasworks market, which is just around the corner from here [in Port Melbourne], it took us a year to get in there, and once we finally got in, it was awesome.
And finally, one last question, are you planning to keep a set range of products or will you expand the range?
Well we had about 7 flavours but it was too much, trying to manage them all and making all from scratch. We found that people would still go back to the good old-fashioned style pies, the main sellers. So we now have a solid range of main sellers. It’s quite a lot of work to run out a new line. But with the new place, we’ll have salads, so that people can have beautiful salad with their pie, we’ll have coffee and beers. It should be good.
[After discussing possible drinks and local beers one will be able to enjoy with a Pure Pie at the new Docklands based venue, I asked Michael whether he and his family often eat his pies.. possibly a silly question]
Yeah (he smiles). ) Mainly sausage rolls for me, as I can eat them on the go. But we do, my sons love the pies, they’re growing into little gourmets (he laughs).. They’ve grown up with pretty good food, so yes they possibly have high standards when it comes to pies..
(I laugh) How could you not!
[Michael then tells me about the sorts of things he prepares and cooks for his boys at home .. like gourmet toasted sandwiches.. so his boys of course recognize good quality ingredients. But when you grow up with such good food developing an appreciation early on, for beautiful wholesome food, is inevitable. It’s these little stories and insights that just bring me joy]
[We had a chat about running a business with young children, and the juggling act. I myself don’t yet have little kiddies but very much admire those who do and decide to jump into a business head strong with the unknowns, risks and all. Michael’s words are humble and honest. He loves to make pies, so much so that now he, and his wife Holly who is equally key in the success of their business, has one very healthy and steadily growing business.]
There are definitely stressful times, but that’s’ all part of it, you grow, you learn, and develop, as a character. You have to deal with situations and it sets up you for pretty much anything. While cliché, it’s quite true. After you’ve worked so hard to get something off the ground, it sets you up.
[A trickle of customers became a flood of early lunch go-ers, so we wrapped it up and I joined the cue to purchase a few goodies to take home – 2 cherry pies for the freezer, a Beef, red wine and rosemary pie, the award winning pie and a pork and fennel sausage roll, Michael’s recommendation. Michael also gave me a little container of those amazing strawberries for the road – so nice!]
It makes sense – take care and time to develop a high quality product, be persistent, work hard, back yourself.. and.. all in good time, people will come running.
For details on where to find Michael’s pies and for more information visit the Pure Pie website.
