A desire to take control of their career was almost scuppered by the pandemic but thanks to a quick pivot and a national marketing campaign, Sarah and Chris Fryers’ plant-based pie business, Magpye, has taken flight in a big way, as the couple tell Alison Cowie.
After years working in teaching and admin respectively, Chris and Sarah Fryer were in search of a career change that would give them more freedom.
The husband-and-wife team wanted to start their own business and discussed several options. But it was after a visit to a local food market that the pair struck on the idea of plant-powered pies.
Sarah, who had always been vegetarian and Chris, who became vegan in his early twenties, felt there was a gap in the market for hearty comfort food without meat or dairy.
The couple, who are from the North East and have previously lived in London and the Middle East, set about developing a range of plant-based pies to fill the void, despite neither having any prior professional catering experience.
“We spent about a year researching, finding suppliers and doing taste tests with family and friends,” Chris reveals. “We wanted to make sure we had a product we’d be happy selling.”
Sarah and Chris decided to call their new business Magpye, to reflect them ‘stealing’ traditional pie fillings – such as steak and ale, mince and onion, and chicken, leek and bacon – and ‘veganising’ them.
“We felt many people were looking for meat-free alternatives but still wanted the hearty, traditional flavours that they’d grown up with,” Sarah explains.
It was essential to Magpye’s creators that their luxury vegan products were made using traditional artisan pastry methods, and were also free from palm oil – the production of which is notorious for causing wide-spread environmental damage.
“Pastry is traditionally used using butter and, if not, contains palm oil that helps speed up production,” Chris explains. “We had to develop our own pastry recipe that avoided both of these.”
Sarah adds: “We’ve worked hard to find high-quality ingredients from producers who echo our own ethics.”
In addition, the pie boxes are made from recyclable kraft paper and biodegradable plant based film.
The initial plan was to sell the pies at food markets and festivals across the UK, and the couple spent months converting an old horse box into a quirky artisan food truck.
But on the verge of taking to the road, the pandemic hit and the dream of travelling the UK selling their pies disintegrated.
Recognising the need for an immediate change to the business model, Chris and Sarah decided their best bet was to start delivering their freshly prepared pies directly to customers’ homes in the local area.
Their next challenge was how to get the Magpye name out there.
The solution, Chris reveals, took just one afternoon as the former computer science teacher set about building an e-commerce website using the GoDaddy platform.
“In early March 2020, it became clear that COVID was incredibly serious, and things weren’t going to change quickly,” he explains. “It took about a half day to pivot the business. We had our domain registered with GoDaddy and I used its tools to set up a website.
“We set up for local delivery and started advertising that we could bake pies fresh and drop them off at people’s doors.”
Within days, the hastily produced website was gaining traction as people bought into Magpye’s plant-powered pies amid lockdowns, supermarket queues and a greater push to buy local.
Sarah and Chris were soon in charge of a thriving business delivering their nostalgic pies to homes across Tyne and Wear.
The rapid success of Magpye was not lost on the UK team at GoDaddy who saw the site rocket up their platform’s rankings.
The internet domain and web-hosting company got in touch with Chris and Sarah to ask if they were interested in taking part in some mutually beneficial PR.
A few media articles turned into a national television advert that told their story, which led to even greater demand for Magpye’s plant-based offering.
Sarah and Chris moved from their tiny kitchen at home to a purpose-built facility in North Shields to keep up with the burgeoning orders.
In the three-and-a-half years since Chris and Sarah established Magpye, the couple have experienced growing appreciation for good quality, meat-free alternatives from vegans and meat eaters alike.
“Attitudes have change hugely,” Chris reports. “When we were developing the pies, we did a few food markets and you would sometimes get people coming up saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re selling this’. That doesn’t happen now; people are really receptive to what we’re doing.”
With the growing popularity for vegan products and the increased profile achieved from the GoDaddy marketing campaign, Magpye’s founders made the decision to roll their deluxe pies out nationally via mail order.
Future plans are to expand the product range to include sweet pies, tarts and quiches – and sell more business-to-business, such as to ethical food stores, independent retailers and chain pubs.
The company recently signed a contract to supply pies to Forest Green Rover, the world’s first vegan football club.
But fully realising their B2B dream will require a large injection of capital and so Chris and Sarah have turned their attention to raising the required investment.
The pair’s initial plan was to use crowdfunding but they soon realised it would be more beneficial to follow traditional investment routes at first.
This year will see the couple receive their first round of seed funding as they join an accelerator programme that provides a programme of mentoring and capital investment.
The couple, who currently run every element of the business themselves – with Sarah overseeing the operational side of things while Chris focuses on business development – also recognise that more ‘people power’ will be required in the coming months.
“We know we will have to take people on at some point,” Chris says. “We’ve also been looking at wholesalers and distributors who can help us manage larger orders.”
For a couple who has never previously run a business, Magpye’s journey to date has been impressive. And Sarah and Chris remain committed to growing the business in a sustainable way so that their future ambition is not ‘pie in the sky’.
For more information visit www.magpye.co.uk
