A Taste of the Island: South Island Pie Co

BY LUCY HAINES

New Zealanders know the importance of a good meat pie: the grab and go, hand-held, meat and pastry offerings are everywhere in the South Pacific island nation, a go-to snack or pub meal, but just as available at grocery stores, neighbourhood bakeries and convenience stores. And the numbers confirm the popularity of this humble food; four million New Zealanders eat a whopping 66 million meat pies a yearthat’s 15 per person.

So when New Zealander, Jamie Scott travelled the world, found love and moved to Canada almost 20 years back, the then 25-year-old Kiwi figured he’d easily find that comforting taste of home at the pub or grocery store. But not so fast. “It’s just not a thing here. I missed those pies and

I didn’t see them. I wanted to change that,” says Scott, who spent several years thinking about how to bring the meat pie culture to his new Alberta home.

“I had no experience in the food industry but loved cooking. I had to figure out how to commercially produce the pies and get them into the hands of the public, but what I really knew was I didn’t want to retire a grumpy old man who hadn’t pursued the idea. So even though I was working full time, by 2013, I pulled the trigger.”

Like many startups, Scott worked a regular day job and took on his passion project at weekends, enlisting the help of his wife, Janice, to package the convenience food as South Island Meat Pie Co. (named as a nod to his hometown of Christchurch, on New Zealand’s south island). With a couple of classic flavours in tow: steak and kidney pie, shepherd’s pie (with characteristic rich gravy, and sometimes onion, mushrooms, cheese, and using chicken and beef sourced locally through Edmonton’s ACME Meat Market), Scott and friends started selling the frozen, ready-to-bake pies at farmers’ markets by 2015.

“That’s all we did the first five years –adding farmers’ markets as we grew; spots like the Edmonton downtown market, St. Albert outdoor market and others,” remembers Scott. “The markets were great for exposure, and getting customer feedback. It was tough when the pandemic shut all that down, putting a halt to direct sales and losing that connection with consumers.”

Still, as market sales dried up, Covid sent consumers (and local businesses) to grocery stores in a big way. The skyrocketing demand for local, quality goods encouraged Scott to regroup, using the time to add to the lineup with ideas he got from market customers, and even enlisting help from his nana and sister back in New Zealand. Over several years, Scott has expanded the South Island Pie lineup to include specialty and limited edition meat pies, vegan and herbivore offerings, and sausage rolls.

We have butter chicken and smoked salmon varieties, and a creamy herbed chicken with bacon and mint – that was my sister Sheridan’s unique idea, and it’s unlike anything you’ve tasted before,” he says, pointing to chicken, cranberry and brie; and steak, cheese and ale as other much-loved varieties of four-inch round, single serve pies. “People like our range–from humble to elevated pies, using natural ingredients and locally-sourced meats –add a salad and it’s a hearty meal. It’s what I hoped it would be.” Scott says.

In 2018, Scott was able to leave his regular day job to make the leap to fulltime pie producer. The now 44-year-old credits his wife and sons, Leo and Foster, ages 5 and 8, with allowing him to chase the dream of having his own business and the whole team – family and partners –who help give him perspective (and lend a hand) when life gets beyond busy.

Scott admits to missing home sometimes, family and the ocean, but is glad for what he’s carved out in this country. Rare trips back, but regular contact with family to revisit favourite recipes or create new ones are always part of the business of bringing a beloved bit of New Zealand to Canada.

He says he couldn’t have known it then, but as the pandemic set in, it was a fortuitous move to join with Honest Dumplings (another startup, selling gourmet Chinese dumplings) to grow their respective food businesses under one umbrella. Sharing the lease and staff in a 7,000 square foot facility in downtown Edmonton, South Island Pie Co. and Honest Dumplings hit the ground running, tapping into the desire for online shopping and quality local goods. Uproot Food Collective filled the bill.

“We got a lot of community support during Covid; for our products and other local brands too,” Scott says, adding that consumers understand the benefits of the collective – keeping dollars and jobs in the local community, offering greater food choices and even enjoying lowering prices on meat pies at a time when the cost of most goods have been on the rise.

Allen Yee, COO and co-founder of Uproot Food Collective, says like Scott, he and Chris Lerohl (founder of Honest Dumpling), also became accidental entrepreneurs in the food industry, moving from the tech world and talk around the water cooler, to then how to take a local food company to new heights on a regional and national level. “Store shelves are dominated by the big guys, so our goal is to find new markets and opportunities,” Yee says. “There’s a growing understanding and desire for sustainability; we’re looking for a way to localize and democratize the food industry.”

For the key players now running Uproot (Scott, Lerohl and partner Ray Ma, and Yee) the driving question continues to be, “How do we grow this?” Part of the answer comes from building out the downtown Edmonton facility; having a commercial kitchen with the ovens and equipment needed to be able to produce a volume of dumplings one day, meat pies the next. “We’re as convinced as ever that we have great products, great brands. The tastes are wonderful – now how do we reach more customers? Yee asks.

It’s about expanding capacity and finding investment, agrees Scott, who marvels at how far he’s come from the early days of creating pies in his kitchen. Case in point: the staff in the facility on 114 Street can churn out over 7,000 dumplings per day and WAY more meat pies than Scott ever imagined possible. ”There are challenges, but it’s the process of going from a small local company to a small national company,” he says. “That’s where we are now.”

South Island Pie, with Honest Dumplings, is in nearly 50 stores around Alberta (including Sobeys, Safeway, Blush Lane Organic Market), and continues to do online sales in Alberta and BC, through its own site (southislandpie.ca and uprootfoodstore.ca). “We’ll go back to the markets again, and trade shows like the Butterdome Christmas Craft Show,” adds Scott, who’s also getting his pies into where they naturally belong, he laughs, in spots like Analog Brewpub and Irrational Brewing in Edmonton, and another spot in Calgary. “Making, eating and sharing pies. I’m happy.”