The ABCS is excited to announce our newest Small Business Sponsor, NZ Pies!
When Tom Simpson left the shores of New Zealand and came to Sweden, he, just like the rest of us antipodeans, really missed sinking his teeth into a delicious hot pie. Whether he was at a festival, a sporting event, or looking for a quick quality bite to eat at home, a decent pie was nowhere to be found. And that’s when Tom decided something had to be done. So, he launched NZ Pies. His pies can now be found in all major supermarket chains across Sweden (including Coop, ICA and ICA Maxi) as well as served hot in pubs across the country. Help us celebrate his success by enjoying his story, and treating our taste-buds to arguably one of the best pies in Sweden.
Tom Simpson | www.nzpies.com
When you come from a land down under, either the big island or the smaller one beside it, both the Aussies and Kiwi’s can agree we all grew up with the privilege of good food, fresh ingredients and multicultural influences that gave us all a refined appreciation for quality cuisine - which extends beyond a mouth watering Pavlova - we’re pretty sure that comes from the big island, right Tom?
Anyway, we might not be able to agree on who has the best rugby team or who owns Russell Crowe, but the Australians might just have to eat their hats when it comes to who makes the best pies. When Tom came to Sweden in 2011 he missed a good pie as much as the rest of us. With his education in food science and agriculture combined with his passion for food, he decided it was time to put his talents to use and not just bake a pie, but challenge the entire Swedish constitution of Taco Tuesday and start a new food revolution - damn good pies for the people. Thus was born the brand NZ Pies, made here in Sweden. (Lucky for us, Tom’s Mum was born and raised in Melbourne, so we’ll just claim him as our own too).
Putting the banter aside, we are truly glad to have NZ Pies as a corporate sponsor of the ABCS. At our summer event Tom was generous enough to donate a few pies to our raffle, and trust us, once you’ve tasted an NZ Pie, you’ll never visit another korvkiosk again.
We spoke to Tom to find out how he identified the pie-hole in the Swedish market (pardon the pun) and his secret ingredients to not only launch a successful product, but to introduce a cultural change by leveraging the comforts from home.
Tom, start by telling us a bit about you.
I grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand and had a fairly standard upbringing based around school and sport (rugby took up most of my time but I played plenty of cricket too). I played rugby in the front row, loved eating and studying science. Thereby it came pretty naturally that I ended up doing a Food Science degree at Lincoln University, where I was also fortunate enough to attain a sports scholarship.
From food and sport in New Zealand, how did Sweden pop-up on your radar?
Upon completion of a Bachelor’s degree I progressed in postgraduate study and met Victoria. Victoria was then on exchange from SLU (Uppsala) as a part of her Master’s degree in Food Science. We shared an office with a few other Swedish and French students. A long story short, stars aligned and we were soon a couple. Rugby took us to the north island where I played for Hawke’s Bay in the National Provincial Championship. Unfortunately, a neck injury ended my career prematurely.
Excessive energy meant that I wasn’t much good at sitting still and took up competitive track & road cycling (a contrast from rugby and a 30 kg drop in bodyweight). At the same time Victoria and I worked together in the food industry and we went full circle going back to work with agricultural science at Lincoln Uni.
At the end of 2011 we moved to Sweden beginning in Eskilstuna (Victoria’s home town).
NZ Pies was launched 4 years later. How did you make your dream a reality?
After 2 months I began work as a Research Engineer at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan in Stockholm (doing nerdy stuff). After a year or two I was back in the private sector working in b2b sales with a food startup. Commuting to Stockholm and travelling around Sweden/Europe was fairly grinding and this meant my next stop was Norrköpings Kommun as a Food Inspector. By this point we had moved to Forssjö so it was short drive south to Norrköping. Forssjö is located 5km south of Katrineholm and we are still living there now.
In October 2015 I resigned and started working full-time on my dream to bring really damned good pies to Sweden. As anyone moving to Sweden from an Anglo Saxon country would tell you it was traumatic for a pie eater living here. I had worked part-time at the family bakery all through school and university, working with pastries and learning the dark arts of baking pies. As a Food Scientist with industry experience and a competitive streak I figured I was well equipped to give it a crack.
It was a challenge given that there was no market for pies at the time and the startup costs were ominously large. As with most entrepreneurial endeavours things started off small and we were able to sublease a commercial kitchen on weekends. We imported the equipment required to start, rebuilt my garage into a freezer facility and off we went. Bake all weekend, sell pies all week long. Repeat ad infinitum.
Things went very quickly and before long we had set up the logistics required to ship nationwide and export (our first regular customers were based in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Finland). Very quickly our production capacity needed to grow and we signed the lease for pie factory 1.0, an empty newly built 150 m2 facility in Katrineholm. This got rebuilt according to our specifications and kitted out as best as we could afford. Since then we have expanded and upgraded constantly to meet our requirements. A fun journey that never really stops.
How did you create a market for something that didn’t exist?
No one simple answer here to be honest. We had the technical background to make the production work (in terms of product development/production management, quality assurance and conformance to legislation) so we just needed to concentrate on building a following and offering a product that people would love. Pies that I eat myself (I have a self-imposed limit of 3 pies per day). Quality has always been our focus as opposed to being a low price player. In terms of flavours we have an open mind and like being innovative. We love trying things that expats maybe wouldn’t see as classic “meat pies”. We develop all our flavours in-house. Investing in good plant has been critical to our business as we have grown.
From early days when we were very reliant on direct b2c sales we have transitioned to being a wholesale supplier. We are always mindful to keep to the formula that has brought us here; that is a great product and huge passion for what we do. If we don’t love our pies and what we stand for then nobody else will either. It is a huge task and long journey so one must remember to be patient. As they say: Behind every overnight success there is at least 10 year’s hard work!
What does the future hold for NZ Pies and our hungrily awaiting stomachs?
For the future we will continue building and spreading our passion for NZ Pies. Australia can have Russell Crowe and Crowded House but we will retain pies and pavlova, ok?
