7 Weird Reasons Willy’s Pies Are The NEXT BIG Challenger Brand: Failing at Watford Football Club, Launching at Arsenal & Fulham, Winning Investment from Ian Wright, Ocado Launch

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2:01Hello, hello. Hope you are wonderful and having an amazing day. This episode with Willys Pie is, Willys Pies, I should say is absolutely banging. I think what Will and Josh have done is absolutely marvellous. I love the fact when people say, you know, building a brand is like jumping off a cliff and building the plane on the way down. It's fucking hard. And also there's no set rules. These guys literally live and breathe that. I mean, Will started, was at Brat and St. John as a chef, started making these banging pies during lockdown, shotting them on his pie-pavaying peddler, aka bike. And four years later, they've launched into Watford Football Club.

2:39And I love this, people finding different channels, slick stream channels. You don't have to do it the normal way. There are other ways to build a brand. And look how much trial awareness you get from Football Club. They launched into Watford Football Club. It didn't work. we go into this about how the nitty-gritty of doing these big deals um they've hustled they've grafted they've created their own surface area of luck they've got ian wright as an investor who talks about in the euros with gary neville um and uh what's up geezer's name forgotten uh they've collaborated with wagamama nike size puma and loads um and now they're back and they've got huge branded listing at arsenal football club they've just got into full and this is just huge brand awareness and no one's thought right pies and football clubs but it makes fucking sense absolute genius just got into okada they've got loads of indies um and the pies are unreal i mean i stuffed my face with the pork and oregano one like a fat little fuck and it was absolutely stunning um you're in for a treat we talk about how they've used their diehard fans how to do um it's home into a brand evangelist the painful lessons from uh from the the Watford deal we go into like their sticker principle how you do one thing is how you do everything there's tons in this you're gonna love it um please do share please do subscribe I sound like a needy little fucker but please do um and oh yeah the other thing is with our newsletter so I spend about 15 hours a week writing a newsletter it's literally if you go into this episode description and click on that.

4:12It's full of lessons about challenging drink brands you won't get from a banal business book. Anyway, thank you so much for the support and thank you for the time. Have a wonderful day. Josh, Will, thank you for having me. Super grateful. I've been watching what you guys have been doing from afar, well, since lockdown basically. I thought this looks fucking sick, like doing something interesting with pies. I've always thought pies could be pre-mised. I thought it was a bit of a dead crusty category. yeah you guys have done it i was like right this is interesting they're selling pies they've got the net market stall um and now well as we're about to record this you're about to go into these premier league football clubs got a card listing um i really think you guys are going to be the next one of the next big challenge brands that really do um so yeah i want to yeah thanks for thanks for doing this appreciate it no problem at all yeah on the on the potty yeah um what i want to start with mate is i read somewhere that you'd kind of dropped out of uni and fucked off to new zealand yeah what is the um i think that's kind of the best place stories start where people like trying to escape something to go and find something yeah yeah what were you trying to like get away from and and go to and what took you to australia uh i don't know i don't know if it was necessarily really trying to get away from stuff i think like like i wasn't great at school and then i sort of like went away did a bit of traveling then was uh came back and all my mates were going to university and it felt like it was an option that was like pushed on me a bit you know and i was 18 or whatever that didn't work out and so within two months i was sort of back at home and actually my mum was like she'll hate me for saying this but it's like it's like you can't stay here you know you've figured this out you're not staying at home where's home where's home is that just outside of Watford okay sweet outside of Watford yeah yeah and then so with that I was really like okay sweet well I'm gonna go as far away as possible I'll show you I'll fucking show you mate I could get a two-year visa in New Zealand at the time and yeah sort of went for it really um and obviously no chef in background like figured it out when i went over there that it was the right environment for me basically and because i read somewhere that their pies um so i was with one of a sponsor the other day's um wife is kiwi yeah and she was saying that the pies is actually like a massive pie thing in australia and new zealand yeah yeah what is the um what would you say um it could be quite contrarian here is better like what pies are better new zealand or australia i guess new zealand's because they take it very seriously it's like they have loads of small bakeries in each town which like take massive pride in their pies i don't know it's just like they're obsessed really yeah and i think australia is as well but it's very like sport driven where it's not so much like each like bakeries and stuff like that in new zealand like you can't get away from them everywhere you know like it's literally yeah they have it for breakfast lunch dinner it's matters what so their pies are kind of like our fish and chips yeah but they have that as well so they've got fish and chips in new zealand fucking no yeah that's mad they're obsessed yeah and then and then josh your background I don't know what we're talking about outside when we have a city, but...

7:46Hydroponics. Hydroponics. And what are the learnings you've taken from... Well, what is hydroponics first, I think, for listeners? And then what are the learnings you've taken from that to fucking... Yeah, do you actually... Pie building. Yeah. Here's your spotlight, mate. Yeah, I'd say it's a bit of an art, bit of a science. It's the growing of things without a substrate in its purest essence. predominantly in this country it's used for growing nefarious plants just because you know they're exotic and you can't grow them here i i would like to say that i didn't do that i was working for an actual company registered with company's house um so i did that for about two and a half years i was the purchase manager so it gave me a good go inside my supply chain, good customer service skills.

8:43I previously worked in a pub, which also helped that. But actually what really lent itself to making pies was the family business that I started working for when I was about 14. Nothing like a bit of child labour. Which was, what was that? That was double glazed units. Right. Whilst they seem completely separate, but the production line element of it is massively transferable about being as efficient as you possibly can at every step of the way, analysing, if not over-analysing every step. Say that again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's strange, you know, I never thought when I first started, when I first jumped on with Will, that that would be applicable.

9:31But it very quickly... I always find, everyone I speak to, there's some weird background that sets them up to success like five years down the line with something fucking completely random. I used to deliver cheese around London. I don't know if you used, there's a wholesaler called Harvey and Brockless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if you've ever heard of them. Delivering cheese around when I left uni I was like, what the fuck am I doing? Sick, mate. Yeah, sick. It was so much fun. I was basically just, and actually, this was like 2016 when podcasts were just starting so I didn't realise I was basically listening to 10 11 12 hours of podcasting because i was like in a van all fucking day yeah and then meeting people like off the cuff so you're having to build relationships quickly but i was like 10 years down the line i'm now doing a podcast it's like fucking hell you can see you can see that and then so with the double glazing so what are kind of the principles so you talked about like the um kind of the manufacturing side like what are the specific things that have yeah made you better making pies basically the way the way the product moves around the factory from a raw ingredient to a finished product right you know so you could see the raw sheet glass that we would get in you know in its single glazed form is akin to get in vegetables uh or meat or anything else and then marrying that glass up with you know the thing that separates it makes into a double glazed unit that can be seen as perhaps the pastry yeah and so it's bringing all these raw ingredients into a final product and the way that they move around a factory but you're also i mean like he's insanely good at like the production line sort of side of things yeah figuring out how to speed things up you know i mean that's it isn't it like and you find i mean there's real i mean there's real satisfaction as well like i think both of us are quite good at that but you sort of like you obviously it started off with just the two of us yeah it's just like very much like uh yeah all hands on deck and i think like what we do now is we're looking at other people doing them for us and we're like oh right that's you know that's holding us up we need to figure out a way to speed that up yeah how do you figure that out okay well we need to get this bit of machinery or this needs to go that table needs to go do you know what i mean like it's just that's because you've now we're all talking about the football stadiums coming on board yeah yeah so you've now got is it Arsenal Watford Watford no I don't know that was the so Arsenal Fulham so all GA and then general admission and then Leeds is hospitality and then obviously like the women's games as well so it's like the women's Arsenal women's which is massive that's mad and then so how does the production line from making it in your flat yeah during lockdown but what I'm trying to get to is how because I think a lot of people talk about the product yeah and like the product has to be banging when you get onto that your chef background yeah but i think um scaling at and like learning how to to almost do that jigsaw puzzle of like this needs to work so we can hit that volume yeah i think that's a really interesting like art and science so what yeah what how has it sort of changed like what have been the main things that have changed in the production line so i think um sometimes it can literally just be placing like and so the packer goes you move two packers around and it's like fuck me like you you get an extra 20 hour an hour like what does that look like for you well i mean predominantly is it is equipment you know when i first jumped on in september 2020 with will we were using you know big stock pots that were perhaps 50 liter capacity we've now got brat pansy i don't know if the viewers will be able to but you can see behind your wrap pans that have 100 litre capacity we've got a deck oven that can cook roughly around 270 of our small pies in one go previously we were working on something that could do 120 yeah um and then the next level up is 250 litre capacity cooking kettles the ovens are you roll your racking trolley in yeah spins it as it cooks it to get an even cook and it rolls out the other side and so there's all a lot of it is there's a lot of thinking to be done but a lot of it is it's a bit of a balance between two of maximizing efficiencies and also making the money so you can spend it on more equipment yeah that doesn't happen overnight you know yeah we used to be i used to be coloring off like oh my god i used to have like two inductions to be like coloring meat so like browning off four and a half hours

14:15just got the meat ready to go in the oven but like now so it's just like yeah i mean you need cash that's a massive thing i mean like because because we would have made that decision a long time ago to have all this kit but obviously you've just got to gradually build and we had the funds that we had and and we dealt with it you know and you find small things over the course of years that make a big difference you know like it's mad yeah i think it's so interesting because it's like how with that chocolate company i was talking about like there are almost like too many fucking steps in the supply chain you just take one little thing but you have to like go through that arduous bit at the beginning you know i'm like then you're constantly looking back retrospectively being like what was i doing like was i brownie meat for four hours you know what i mean also like there's a real satisfaction in that because we've done it the right way you know yes you've cheated a little bit you know yeah i mean i think that we've grafted that's the most important thing is that we have worked our fucking asses off man like over the last four years and like we we used to pay each other 50 quid a week we weren't taking 40 hours in two days we weren't taking universal credit and we were doing what we could with the you know with the equipment and the facilities that we had and we've worked together you know and so now we're in a position where it's like sweet yeah yeah nine to five son yeah it's coming yeah that's jokes hey guys thank you so much for watching this video honestly means the absolute world to me um i'd be so grateful for a small favor please is so hard growing on youtube channel is so bloody hard um if you please enjoy these videos just click the subscribe button um more subscribers equals bigger guests bigger guests equals better conversations and hopefully you can learn more as you build your food drink brand thank you so so much uh and then and then with the um and i want to get on to kind of like the the kind of the vision when you're working that hard like put like literally cycling around london during lockdown yeah i like super respect that graft but in terms of getting yourself ready for these um uh these football club like lift the stadia or the stadium um what have been the things that you've really had to like change in the jenga of supply chain to make it like or is it just like graft graft graft graft graft uh sorry this flies in my head yeah moving more moving away from what would stereo I think what's quite stereotypical of food businesses small food businesses whereby you just order whatever you need and you pay whatever they say to more to something that resembles more contractual work so you say well we're gonna you're writing forecasts rather than just being like oh i need 20 kilos beef this week and then next week i'll order 30 and you do it on a very sort of like last minute basis with your plan further ahead and you say yeah i will actually by november we should be up to x amount of beef per week x amount of chicken and then you you you go to your surprise and say look what's the best price you can offer we'll be using this for four months so that that really helps you know we used to change it every week the menu which was absolutely that's hilarious it was don't get me wrong it kept is that like your chefy kind of like i think i'll be honest i think like it's weird because it's like we're now we've seen the benefits of having a menu that stays on for longer because i think people get used to it and they go like oh i like i enjoyed that you're sort of like one-off customer who picks up the pie from a shop is going i really like that i'll buy that again yes whereas before we were relying on the instagram sales and people going like oh what's up like what are they doing now and like naturally the business is going like okay we're into this next stage where it's like consistency like like you know you you want to nail those one-off consumers and make sure that they're buying and week in week out whereas we were relying on like a base of basically from east london really yeah yeah and southeast london we're going like we're commit we're really helping these guys out and love what they're doing that's mad and and you know the more we're now just into this next step it's so what it's so interesting what you say there mate in terms of like we talked about the evolution of the supply chain getting all this kit in and stuff but i think there's an evolution in terms of like how you go from like super niche to where we're at now about to be not mainstream but fucking getting there yeah and it's like the things that keep your core original consumers happy which is the ever-changing menu like go on the insta what's new yeah isn't the thing that's going to get you from that might get you from a to b but from b to c to d no yeah exactly i think it's really because i think some people can get either so obsessed with the next shiny toy but then saying that like what's really important is that you keep that fundamental uh sort of what willie's prize started off as in terms of being like say we're not going to steer too far away from that you know but we're only going to change the menu four times a year and so it's going to go with the season so there's a chefy side to it and seasonal side to it which no one else is offering yeah and so but we're also going to do something do it so that it works for us obviously but then also works for that consumer who will get used to a product and want to buy it on a weekly basis basically yeah you know yeah yeah yeah i think it's really there's a happy medium of that and that's the same same with quality of ingredients you know and like a consistency in that regards i think we've always sort of made really nice quality stuff and use good quality ingredients and keeping that consistency there and just not dipping in a couple of aspects and and ways that we produce yeah and sell you said you said you save time and money on the building of the pie because that's where would you mean like the building the pie like up front you mean i mean like the actual you know you we've made them say we made a load of mix today and then tomorrow we're going to build, we're going to turn that mix into pies.

20:24Right. Where you can really save your money is by making that as efficient as possible, but where all of the value is is in the quality of the mix and the pastry. We've got an amazing pastry supplier that comes down from Dorset called Dorset Pastry. Don't say that, man. They're going to pyro-swe'll nick us. Jesus! We'll be able to get preferential rates. So we get to that point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 30 days of the month.

20:54That's so funny. So we have that great product. We don't have to save money there. But what you do is you have this machinery that aids in that and you don't take away from the thing that sets our pies apart from everyone else, which is the quality of the flavour. I think when you get into the realms of reducing there, that's when you've lost. And how do you, because I had the oregano and pork one. Yeah. Unreal. real so so delicious and then how that's that's another balancing act is that scale versus in getting access to the best ingredients like sorry what do you mean by that so like as you get bigger yeah it can be so easy to like think all right well we could get i don't know say i think you did i think you said you used clarence cortex is that i don't yeah the page you will uh yeah exactly that's a prime example it could get to a stage where you're like right we could yeah go somewhere else that's still really good but not as you know but yeah but i mean what how do you how do you just can't you don't you can't yeah interesting i just don't think you can i mean we i mean if we could but we're not going to be what we say we are yeah and we're not going to be willy's pies which has been all about that from the start it's like again like going back to the old chef's background stuff it's like it would kill me to do that yeah you know i've worked in good restaurants and and that's something i really care about you know it's like i mean when i when i dropped out of uni i was i was studying agriculture in wales because i was so keen on like sort of free range meat and stuff like that and i was quite passionate about yeah yeah yeah i feel like it'd be like you know and that was at 18 so where do you so i always find that interesting what what like what pulled your curiosity to that like what was so i don't really know yeah to be honest i think so I never was interested in cooking like I never was bothered I was like sausage chips and beans like put in a you know spag bowl spaghetti hoops roast dinner on a Sunday but I was quite fussy and stuff and then like for some reason I don't know I've just always been interested in sort of animal welfare and then and then weirdly I think like it's kind of strange then you become a chef and you just like you work at good places and obviously like it's just something that is connected isn't it in a in a way yeah i think i think certainly the restaurants that you have in london and the restaurants you worked out where provenance is is is put at the top of everything and i think yeah they're i mean obviously owning a restaurant is not easy and the profit margins are not good yeah and a lot go to the wall and it's only a very small minority that last, you know, any longer than sort of five to ten years.

23:47I listened to this really interesting podcast. My mate sent it to me by this like Irish economist, but he got on this Michelin star chef on and talked all about the margins of a Michelin star restaurant. It's basically like they don't make, they literally make so much six, seven percent. But the way they make their money, like say like Adam Handling or Paul Ainsworth is off the pub, the bistro. That's where they make the margin back. because it's literally the amount of them that are shutting down as well try selling a product honestly it's mental man the way I kind of liken it is that they create a menu and they say well this costs us this much so we have to sell it for this much we have to work it backwards this has to cost the end user this much and we have to fit everything that we want to into that price and still make money and so and that product has to sell at that price so if you go too high yeah but the benefit we have is that our top restaurant in London can't fit any more than its capacity allows as long as we can keep expanding our capacity we can keep servicing more and more and more and more people and you know it's an economy of scale business whereby should we continue on the trajectory that we are we should be able to offer the same quality of product for a low enough price that, I mean, this is never going to be Pukka, but what the fuck are you getting for£1.50?

25:13Yeah, Pukka's so right. You're buying it for£1.50, which means the supermarket has been sold it for God knows how much and actually making a margin on it. How they can make money on that leads you to question it, but we truly believe that by increasing our capacity we can truly make a product that is nationwide and is accessible to unfortunately maybe not everyone but as many people as we could possibly make yeah i think what if i was talking about earlier is so you're on these you're on these push bikes just making them in your kitchen i think mate like yeah yeah i was oh right okay you weren't all right you missed the graph bit yeah yeah clicking pens and growing weeds i'm joking i'm joking but the um smoking it yeah smoking it i'll see you in september mate i'm a i'm a feather where what's it a fair weather cyclist um yeah so so because loads of business started in lockdown like everyone was doing fucking brownies like making necklaces out of acorns like it's such random shit yeah but like so what is your vision in your head as you're cycling around um london delivering these pies is it like yeah what's what are the thoughts in your head i'm trying to get to that or is it not a huge amount more just like filling time was the main thing i think right i was i was on the phone to my dad walking down leebridge road and he was like what you're gonna do because obviously like restaurants and stuff were the you know the last ones to sort of like projected to go back into work and all that and then i was just like well i might start making this is like two weeks in you know i was like i might start making pies and just the original idea was that I was going to start working in the local butchers and just like selling like make a few dishes and stuff and then I was like no I'll buy the meat off you and then I'll supply or like you give me the meat and I'll supply you with pies and then give me a bit extra and I'll go and fling it sell it and then um and then obviously like the first run was like just to friends you know whacked on instagram or whatever and uh and i was just like oh yeah does anyone want him and everyone's going oh yeah we'll help a mate out yeah yeah he's not getting paid at the minute and then so i was like um yeah started doing it and i went we've got a shout out tom of me god got a shout out to him who's tom tom ford was uh yeah he he was he's our mate god stop the tom ford yeah i hate on ford saying he's our mate get your free sunglasses sponsored by but he was uh we were living together at the time and then um so we were cycling doing the deliveries together and um yeah so originally it was just going out to to mates and we'd sort of say wherever in london all of london by push bike and obviously then it started catching and it was kind of it was weird when you i remember again chatting to my dad on the phone in the garden i I was like, this does feel quite odd because it's like, it just started moving quite quickly.

28:26It was like, the word spread. And yeah, probably people just wanted to help out to start with and just support. But then it was like going... I did. You were hungry, mate. I don't know if you couldn't deliver to me. I had to go and collect my fucking self. I was up there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ease too closely. I have to come and get it himself. And I didn't want to play the delivery show. That's true. But in terms of like, I don't know, in terms of like thinking, Honestly, like, it was just like, I think because it was slow and steady and then, and then it all of a sudden am tough. I, you know, I had months where it was like, we still, there was no talk about going back to work.

29:03It was just about filling that time and just really embracing it at that moment. And then when Thomas Parry rang me when I was at Brat, he, he, he rang me up and he was like, so you ready to go back? and I was like, I don't know if I am, actually. I think I'm going to just give this a go. And then we went back into another lockdown and he called me again and sort of seeing if I was up for it. And I was like, nah. This is really interesting. I think it's to help a lot of people because a lot of people who listen to this message me, like, I'm in this crossroads. So, like, which path do I pick? And obviously, like, you've got the secure job.

29:38Well, it's still a bit ambivalent, but mainly secure job. I'm shotting pies on a push bike like what what was pulling you in that direction what do you like the first the first thing is I think like probably this wouldn't be here if I was still like you know if lockdown didn't happen like and COVID didn't happen because really I think it's one of those things where it's like COVID allowed for me to just have that opportunity to sort of like think about myself and what I really wanted to do and I and I think like it's a bit of a weird one because it's like you sort of like i don't know how to describe it i can't remember what i'm gonna say i i think i've got what drove it i think yeah because okay so at the beginning it's like because i get this i have the same in this podcast right set up in lockdown yeah yeah i was like i'm bored like yeah i was like oh well someone like the you're like someone who's done a really interesting business like you're not doing anything so it's quite easy just to get them on zoom it started like that but then about two years ago i was like right i want to build this massive a fucking thing yeah and what was the point when it kind of went to at the beginning it was like super chilled you're just trying to fill time thomas uh calls you from brats says do you want to go back you say no yeah like what is the the kind of the the change in you guys which is like right we're going to build a wopper we're going to get the wopford we're going to get the oh god i met personally i think it was like there's a there's a couple of things in there but perhaps pride a bit of embarrassment as well like not wanting it to fail yes i wanted to build this thing that was selling out on a Monday morning you know 250 pies within you know like 10 minutes knowing full well that that wasn't going to continue yeah as people were allowed out the house and would you know there was a huge spike in home delivered food knowing that that was going to go through the floor as soon as as soon as people were allowed out the house they weren't going to be in the house at all yeah knowing our business was then going to be like fucked for want of a better word and being like we want to pivot this into something else it's a bit of embarrassment you know don't want to be embarrassed so pride and then I think also as well not wanting to go and work for someone else there's a bit of that and there's also like we built this thing that that had legs it clearly had legs and we wanted to see how far we could take it and you know we are still sat here and I remember what I was going to say so the thing like when you're sort of like you know if you're working a full-time job and then it's like you've got this little idea on the side and stuff like covid was a bit of a blessing because i could fully commit to it you know i mean it's like yeah yeah yeah when when you're sort of working full-time and people are starting up businesses and they're doing on the weekends and stuff it's like so hard it's so hard as it is like when we had every hour under the sun for us to focus on it it was so hard to even get it off the ground then we're not even off the ground but you know i mean just focus on it and then like let alone when you're working full-time it's just probably ideas just go like they drift away but like give up easy yeah you've got less runway so we sort of got ourselves to that position where we were going like oh yeah like you know i i don't know personally i i didn't want to go back into into kitchens i was i was over it and i felt a bit knackered and and and it was an opportunity out and it was like, well, you've got this far.

33:00Like, just, you've got to go for it. Just keep cracking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a no-brainer, I'll be honest. And how did you get over the,

33:08like, when people are allowed out of the house, the demand, as you said, the demand's going to go through the floor. Yeah. How did you mitigate that? We talked a bit about graft. This is where the look comes in. It was, what, it was probably April 2021. everyone was properly allowed out of the house again and we had an email from someone that you met in oz did you meet me in oz yeah yeah worked together worked together in oz he works for this company that introduced small brands into event spaces you know they do uh if you go to q gardens they do the the the concession stands there small brands it might be burritos, pies, chicken, whatever, saying that they had this opportunity at Watford.

33:58And so from August 2021, we pivoted from this brand that sold direct to consumer to a brand that sort of sold direct B2B, business to business, in a fashion. And because we were already making in batch quantities, because the nature of the way that things were set up in lockdown of the drop, you know, which drops on a Monday and then we make 250 off the 47. Sure, sure. That's quite similar and quite, you know, it's almost like parallel to what a production slash manufacturing business does. So we started doing that and that didn't really work. Yeah, let's talk about it. If we're right to talk about this, because I think you learn, I know it's the wanky entrepreneur thing, so you learn from your failures, but it's true.

34:47Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what went sort of Pete Tong when you went to, you get a I don't know if you call it a listing but you get like a we had a contract do a bit of business or something like a contract that's it a lawyer would say it's a contract yeah yeah yeah

35:02um so so yeah Watford come to you or you get this yeah Lincoln what's the what are they saying to you what have you promised them and then kind of how did it go a bit yeah Pete Tong um it was very strangely arranged relationship we would give them the pies they would invoice us for the amount of pies they sold they were roughly wasting about 200 which we weren't allowed to invoice them for and at the time it cost us about £3 to produce the pies so we were wasting£600 a week say every game they would pay us for the amount they sold yeah then this company that got us involved would invoice us for their commission at 15 or whatever it was i think i think we negotiated hard and got 12 and a half percent yeah it's this really strange working relationship it was really messed up yeah and it was real real naivety from our end but also it's like you know massive learning curve of being like you just need to be a bit more shrewd and like and you know it's sort of a bit bitter isn't it with stuff like that I think so is that your personal do you support Watford yeah man oh so that's even that might hurt even deeper mate on the toes just to get ahead of any defamation losses it's not Watford we dealt with it's another company who I'm also not going to mention yeah yeah yeah but it's not Watford it's a catering contractor a lot of football clubs they go for like and stuff like that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah no you're right like saying that like obviously we got it wrong as well like massively wrong and like we weren't oh yeah we weren't there and we shouldn't have accepted the contract because we weren't able to fulfill the order and like and and i think that it was like a massive naivety in that in that regard and it was like it was one of those ones you go like god can't say no to this but actually definitely should yes man yeah and it's you know like i was on talk sport man i was like got a phone call at 8 a.m on the first game of the season whatford were in the it was like playing villa first game it was like we were in the back of the guardian it was like too good too bad it was like what feels like obviously predicted to go down this season but the good thing is they've got willing's pies which they did and then we were like jesus christ

37:43and then obviously you sort of like we were like we first of all we had a we had a product wasn't it was fresh pastry so the exit what we expected was the in each kiosk was them to cook the pies and obviously the average age of the people in the kiosk were about 17 and a half you know i mean and it was like and then so I was like tearing around the stadium Vicar of Joe and I was like Jesus stick him back in the oven and he and he and I was like that's burnt and then obviously get it in the beard so there was like this really it was just horrendous and then we went you know week in week out and we'd have this meeting with these like head honchos and then just be like I promise we'll get it right next week yeah yeah yeah and then we just didn't we just didn't get it right we didn't even So what's the, the, the, the, they just basically weren't cooking them.

38:35They were cooking them, but it wasn't like, yeah, but it was just not. They were trying to fit like 200 in an oven with no, no gaps between the pies. There's no airflow. And then they're 17. Can't cook a piece of fucking toast. Yeah. yeah. But also we were using like, you know, we had one of these was like, was what we had. And it's like a pie press. and we didn't even know how much filling was going to go into like the pie yeah yeah yeah and we just started to figure out this machine and then it was like all right sweet so they were bursting everywhere and then we're just like okay so it's actually got to be 120 grams we didn't have a premises at the time we were sharing with someone and so for the first i think it was two or three games we cooked the mix at Watford at the Watford Stadium at Vickery Drone and then the next day went back in that's mad that's mad I can't believe they let us do it I honestly can't believe it but I love I understand why you know I can't I can't you know as much as we can you know vitriol and oh yeah these are our souls or whatever but I can't understand why they got rid of us yeah yeah it's not like so they tried to put like walkers and mars bars and and we were go no yeah yeah yeah yeah so what's the like let's say it's like the apprentice moment where you guys go to a caf and you have your like your cup of tea and you're like well we're fucked now yeah yeah yeah yeah you're fired mate see you later i'll fire myself so what do you say to yourself because i think every in every kind of story there's these these these bits happen and I think what's so interesting and we'll get onto this is like now that kind of cauldron of failures and learnings has now set you up for success well with what you're doing now right with with the new but yeah what's that moment because you said lockdown demand goes off a cliff you get this kind of um safety kind of safety net if that's what yeah safety net where the the um you get Watford and then it kind of goes down again you're like yes so you're having a cup of tea or a pint like what you say to each other it's your fault no but like in all seriousness we lost the contract right and then it was like okay we put all of our eggs in one basket and we me and josh were outside the front of it this this arch was maybe a shared space we were going to share it with another company right and so we were paying x amount on rent and we had no money coming in we'd lost the main contract and so we literally we obviously were selling to stores I think we were no sorry yeah so then we were like right we've got to change our whole business idea business model model moves within like literally a couple of hours and it was like well we've got to sell to stores we've got to start selling locally yeah and it was weird because we were standing outside one of those bins having a fag and a kilt coffee just like this is it maybe I am going back to Brad if they'll take me yeah that's exactly this place we were supposed we signed a class it's like only fools north next time Rodney don't you worry mate you'll be sweet next year Rodney you're going to be a millionaire well maybe not next year maybe the year after next but yeah no Will's right we took this place on in July 2021 the electricity wasn't on that's why we had to cook out of Watford's kitchens for a couple of months and then we finally got in here and we were going to we cooked our first batch of Watford pies in here and I think we even cooked them I think we pre-baked them so they would be easy for them to cook the other end we were finally going to be consistent and that was like the last weekend of last week of December and then they we never went back they never had us back and we had we had we had about 1500 units in the fridge getting high in your own supplies yeah we've got to sell these somehow yeah yeah they did go in the end eventually but when we came back in january we had a couple of weeks off and we came back yeah yeah yeah they hit well yeah um and then we yeah we came back in january 2022 and and it we were like right we're selling to stores then that's it like and because we had to make it work otherwise it was like lights out so it's literally a case of just getting we we were just on the computers for hours and just being like right local delis yeah small stores all around here yeah obviously we had a bit of noise from from lockdown and stuff so we played off that yeah and we were like listen will you buy the pies you know and just please buy the pies buy the fucking pies mate yeah i mean like i don't i don't know if i should say this but like in all honesty like we were screwed because we we didn't pay rent on this place for a year do you know yeah yeah we just tried to fly under the radar and we did well we did and we just we just like we were riding it out and trying to find our feet and we were just like waiting till they come knocking and then and then we'll deal with it but it was like you know we've had i think like that's something that i think is actually really important to press on is that people think that we're flying and we're we're laughing the whole time and everything's easy like i'll tell you what like this has been the most stressful thing we've ever done in our lives especially as the as time moves on and we're we're progressing with it and stuff um you know there's sorry this chair's a bit mad but it's you know it hasn't been easy and like i think it sometimes looks like it is and i tell you what it's definitely yeah what so what's been like how do you guys um what's been the biggest barmy you guys have had on the whole journey like and how do you because i think what week yeah yeah but it's in so the guys are just with the beer brand i was just with they're having a they were having a barmy just now because my mate wants to activate there's a there's a is it the volley the football pub that's just launched yes he's got this idea it's a beer brand where he wants to do if you you spray your hair the color of the brand, then they'll pay pint, they'll buy your beers all night.

44:46So basically just go there and my other mate's like, mate, do you know how fucking stupid that is? Like, which is going to be, best you pay pint, if a hundred people spray their hair, we're just paying for the night out. But there was a massive barmier. One beer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's a daily tension. And as we were leaving, they were just like, yeah, it's a good tension. Like, how do you, yeah, kind of work through that? do you know what I mean stopped doing it in front of staff first and foremost that was very that was a long time we stopped doing that really did you just have a massive bar meet when I was in the kitchen not anymore but when I was in the kitchen I might be here pressing a pie base and we might be over there putting pies in the oven and we're talking across the staff about the running of the business when you're in here for 12 hours 9 to 12 hours a day when else are you supposed to and then you know I've got this idea or Will's got this idea or a vision of how it should and shouldn't be yeah you're shouting across the staff and you're just like I'm going to nip that in the board because it's like you end up having to ask them to leave you just go or we have to go then your production line's slowing we're so much better and I think the main thing that that's allowed that to happen is actually like sort of having a complete understanding of what that other person does and like when you sort of get that then you can go like all right you know because i i think i mean when i'm when i've been in here and i was like for for ages i was just cooking and and that was it and then i was like what like not to say that i was like oh what's josh doing but you know now the daily mail tv and showbiz section having a little mooch and then like you know you sort of i i've come out of the kitchen and then just having someone show you what exactly what they're doing and then you just go like fucking out then and also like it's just it's just respecting each other massively like you get to i mean over the four years i know what pisses him off and i know and he knows what pisses me off what pisses him figured it out yet that won't work mine too much change yeah yeah let's keep it the same prime example of dodge is this morning i came in so i was in for 7 30 and i started like moving the stuff around and i was like right get everything sorry and i pushed that with the machines in the back and then you were like no no i think it's just go up front i was like just let and do it but he's right he was right yeah yeah yeah and sometimes he's just they need to fucking react yeah we used to always like react you know and then so reactive and then you just go let him both yeah moving machinery yeah yeah both very stubborn yeah really stubborn both really believe in what you know in in what we think is right yeah it can be as minute as like well stick the machine out the front or it can be as big as like you know let's do x y or z to that you know let's let's yeah get a secondary space let's you know buy a second brown pan let's spend you know best part of 12 and a half thousand pound on a deck of and you know can be from the minutest things to the biggest things but there's a there's a big picky battles as well like there's no yeah no need like there's similar things you know like where i'm like oh i don't actually agree but it's actually not worth like it isn't going to affect anything that badly yeah that's worth having the conversation about wasting that wasting our breath 100 % and like Will says it is about respect it's about like doing it properly not raising your voice not shouting not using pejorative terms and swearing at each other like we used to and just being like you know just being like no sorry I don't agree with this yeah yeah rather than being like stop being a fucking prick you know like oh that's really constructive that was cheers Josh yeah yeah it's so interesting what I'm trying to get is the way I just love it when and I think what I'm picking up from you is this kind of blind faith and stubbornness are two amazing traits to get anything done.

48:53But then, like, I want to try and get more into the kind of the granularity of, like, how you're kind of different. This is a fucking random question. But, like, say you were a pie, right? Say you're literally a pie. I've thought about this. Have you actually thought about this? Well, because obviously you've got the righty pie, so he's developed his pie, right? If you were, like, the Josh pie and the Will pie, like, what would be in your ingredients? Do you know what I mean? A little bit of courage. Yeah. I'm so sorry. 50 grams of courage. I asked... You'd say a sprinkling of courage and I'd say 50 grams of courage.

49:26And then that's the main... Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what did you say? A sprinkling of courage and... I'd say 50 grams and he'd say a sprinkling. Oh, that's so interesting. How does it feel? And what was mine? Someone said it previously. I'm about the numbers and you're about how does it feel? Yeah, yeah, yeah. How does it feel? I think that's a good way. But, oh God, in terms of a pie, I quite like, I don't know, pork. Pork's pretty good. Is that the question you're asking? I don't really know what I'm asking. I'm just saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it your pie? The route that Will went down, I think it was quite a good one.

50:03Yeah, but that's what I was trying to get to. It's a bit more philosophical. Yeah, but it's the sprinkling versus 55, 50 grams, whatever you said. I think that's really interesting to get. I think that's probably the main difference between us. Yeah. Will has that creative spark. I don't want to say that I don't have a creative spark. I think I'll fix problems and I'll fix issues, which in many ways is creative, but I am quite like... I think what he's insane at is just getting things over the line and he does it very professionally. He's covering so many things and he literally just has an understanding of it all and he does it to such a professional and good standard, hence why we're in Arsenal.

50:40You know what I mean? We wouldn't be there if we didn't have this level of professional overview from his side of things. and then from my side it's like i'm going to produce the best quality product that i can and i'll and it's going to be as delicious as it possibly can be you know like that's where i i just create it i can create yes like i i was like i went in and it's like josh other josh he's like our head but you know like they we've got these new guys that are getting trained up and stuff and obviously it's just like it takes time and shit but the hours and the level that we've gone into to create these mixes this week is like massive you know and like there's care and like we taste it over and over again just to make sure it's right and especially with these ones going into arsenal you know we're just being like so over the top of it but then i just said you know they they've they we're sticking the pies at the minute i just got josh in the fridge and i was like listen like you haven't like stickered these pies properly because i was like if i was there if i was in the shop and i saw that and it's sticked wonky or it's coming off and i wouldn't pick it up because i think someone else has tampered with it and like you know i mean it just looks doesn't look great and we've had an issue with our boxes so they all the boxes are the same color so there's a few aspects where it looks a bit cheap but it's like i think you've just constantly got to think about what i do is i constantly think about that consumer how does it look yeah how does it taste making sure it's exactly what i want that person to be eating basically so there's a there's a book i read by um danny maya mayor who did that um union square in new york that that unreal restaurant yeah i think it became the best restaurant in the world yeah and he's got a really interesting book called unreasonable hospitality and he basically says your job as a leader is to constantly move the salt and basically what he means that is every waiter every new waiter going to the table each every single day you're gonna have to say that's where the soul needs to be that's what the leadership is is like that's where the soul needs to be same thing with the stickers it's like yeah is it all i really believe like how you do one thing is how you do everything right like literally like how you put a sticker on yeah 100 fucking demonstrates how the business runs yeah it really does i said to josh i was just like i like it looks lazy and we're not lazy we're not lazy in here we're working on so hard and we care so much about what's in that box but if someone's getting there and they're picking up a shelf and it looks wonky and it looks like it's not stuck properly what are they and the color of the box is different to what they got last week then what are they actually thinking they're going like oh that company is probably not really cared about that at this week so why should i buy it yes yeah yeah yeah definitely but i mean obviously this these are really small things yeah but that's that's the whole point but it's so it's so important especially as we get into this next stage of just like consistency throughout from our side like my side and Josh's side you know with this new deal going into Arsenal so we talked about the kind of the calamity at Watford first guy time um go round yeah so you've learned a lot you've had your tea your ciggy and you've had your apprentice moment and then you're like right we're going into this now literally in the big leagues what have you how have you approached it differently in terms of uh like the specifics like what does the deal look like if you can say that like how have you gone into it production wise like how are you not going to be kind of um being fast and loose with it if that makes sense yeah yeah no definitely um it's a much more traditional working relationship we produce the pies we sell them the pies and that's essentially that could be where it ends yeah you know we could not you would not you could not know that it was willie's pies at arsenal if it wasn't for the work that Will's doing with them on the mark.

54:28Is it branded or is it? It's all branded. Oh, amazing. So we'll be in town. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I think it's 40 forms. All Willys. Yeah. That's sick. 14 kiosks we'll be in. Yeah. Any of those kiosks that have us will have Willys Pies on the menu and then one of the 14 will be the Willys Pies kiosk. So it will be purely branded as Willys Pies and you will pretty much only be able to get from a food perspective. would only be able to get Willy's parts Fulham there's a little bit of work to be done on that kind of how the brand is going to be presented and whether that's going to be possible yeah but again it's a very traditional arrangement whereby so that's so hard to wangle that when we say that it's going on a pallet it goes to them you deal with it part baked done yeah I mean the branding on the menu thing yeah because that chocolate company I was talking about they've just gone into prep and it's all white label so it's kind of like eventually we will have to do things like that as a manufacturing business you can't turn down work because you can't put your name on it we can make money from our name and from our brand and can probably charge demand a higher price if people don't want it for like Marks and Spencer's if you're going to Marks and Spencer's how many brands do you see on the shelf?

55:52barely any at all and so eventually Marks and Spencers they're our perfect realistically they're our perfect market they sell high end high end goods at an increased rate sorry at an increased price but they're not going to sell Willy's Pies or they may but it's quite nice I actually reckon they would they might they might if they don't well you're going to say no to them because you can't put Willy's Pies on it well yeah it's just a really interesting point if we need to have revenue and they've got you know thousands of stores you'd be stupid to say no as long as people are eating it and getting a good product that comes back to the consumer like if our brand is being represented enough elsewhere why not sell it to someone and they're getting a good product and they're getting good provenance the ingredients of good provenance surely it's a no-brainer we're getting paid they're getting a good product and our product is still then being served you know to a wider audience yeah it's mad but getting it branded on the menu like how did you sort that out what it's that i like doing that stuff so it's like i think what did you say to them was it like i mean well just you hustle don't you yeah you know like you just say you push push push and like i mean the initial conversation is sort of like you know get you in there once you find your feet and you go like you know we were back and forth a few times had a few tastings we went down to the emirates they went down really well and then once you're in and they like what we had to offer obviously connection with right is huge yeah oh yeah um then you know it's sort of everything semi falls into place but i i was quite i felt quite strongly about i mean arsenal's gonna be huge for us as a as a brand and i think that's when sort of like maybe philom will go like all right maybe we want to do that actually yes yeah yeah because obviously arsenal working with different brands you know they're generally like very very cool club you know they've got great links and yeah just sick they've got to camden town brewery as well don't they they do yeah yeah because beaver town went to spurs and then championed them when they were really small i mean obviously they're over i think it's ab in now yeah yeah yeah huge conglomerate but you know they they backed them when they were really small and you know but for them it's for them to talk about as well yeah you know i think like if they didn't want it there's not much you know you can you can sing to the cows come home is that but i also like i mean like so there's stuff that they say they're going to do anyway and so like every time we've just gone like oh can we have a bit of input you know and just like it was uniforms like they were just like we're going to go with this what do the uniforms look like let's can we get willy's pies on there and then they loved it we we got the design done and then they liked the idea of it done and then right in the menus you could just let them do it but we were like no we need to write it our way yeah and it needs to be written with the quality of ingredients so people understand of the the can relate to the pricing not that it's going up massively but you know you can relate to it it's something to talk about oh you know it's free-range chicken it's you know it's rather than it just being handmade in hackney yeah chicken rosemary and leek or chicken salmon onion as it will be at football sorry uncle right is you know well the uncle eyes obviously talks for itself a little bit and there'll be a lot of you know a lot of talk around that but the beef mince and westcom cheddar it's neil's yard dairy cheddar it's hg water uh beef mince and yeah it's just things that people see that they're getting more for their money yeah yeah it's mad it's nine pound forty for a pound of pound before the game that's unreal do you know what I mean yeah yeah so an hour an hour before before the game it'll be or an hour sorry an hour after gates open it'll be£9.40 for a pint of pint so make sure you get down early yeah yeah yeah and then how many are you expecting to do a week like per game or if they just can you say that or two and a half no 2 ,000 for Arsenal that's mad that's what they were saying last year so that's what we're starting on and hopefully that grows but we think that's going to go up yeah I mean again especially with righty he'll be able to do a good push on that and I think that connection with the club and stuff and also just like I feel like Arsenal fans are quite decent it's just sort of I don't know probably got we've probably got quite a few Arsenal fans in our in our you know from our in our community yeah yeah yeah in the community the online community that we've built you know yeah Will's personality has managed to build over the last four years thank you Josh yeah that's all right man yeah well that's the thing i do find your uh the instagram is so funny mate sometimes something stuff you put up which makes me laugh mate i'm an idiot yeah the um so what's ian wright taught you then because i know he basically found you guys and then but what's he taught you about um whether it's business or just kind of um yeah like life what's because he's such a prolific i mean especially now with everything he's doing on um he's like a media fucking machine now uh well always has been but with the podcast and stuff like that what's he taught you guys individually i don't know if it's about teaching i think it's like what's really amazing about him is like first of all is is he's put faith in us and we've sort of got further down the line with the business and stuff and he still has that faith and we've got a real connection with him.

1:01:27And he's actually just, obviously, everyone says that he's a legend and stuff, judging off what he's like on TV, but he generally is. And he's so kind-hearted and he actually just really cares. Like, he just really cares about us as individuals, but also the business. And he's allowed us and got us into situations like we are now, you know? And we're really lucky to have someone like him on board or to have him on board because we wouldn't be where we are now without him. No, I mean, it definitely kickstarts a conversation with Arsenal. And when people either hear about it, when you tell them or they have previously heard about it, they want to know more instantly.

1:02:14So yeah, I think Will's right. It's not necessarily about teaching, but the help that it's given, the leg up that it gives you. You know, it's massive and somewhat incalculable a little bit you know it will it'll probably run its course like a lot of things do in terms of like how how how interesting that news is over the course of 10 to 15 years but it could it's hard to quantify but it could well be the difference between us carrying on as an ongoing concern to perhaps not have been an ongoing concern yeah it's one thing i pick up from you guys is that you've got this ability to kind of be create a massive surface area for like through graft luck yeah like whether it's with the Watford thing or righty getting involved yeah but how did he did he just reach out to you was like that pie was fucking unreal or like what was the i haven't told this story before but

1:03:08here we go again we usually take this one in turns yeah yeah yeah i did the last one so lot of wubimoy who plays for arsenal women's and she her and her partner teha gagan are like big fans of the Pies and we they sort of we're actually they've been amazing to us and supported us again from the start and basically Lotta I was like we're on a podcast bro

1:03:37no worries he can get involved mate where was I the amount of times I've had a postie come in during a podcast he's like what the fuck are you doing mate I'd never go up north to do them but anyway

1:03:51yeah so basically I was like we were trying to figure out ways at the initial part it was always about gifting pies which is really lame and annoying but you have to do it I think to make a bit of noise and keep the Instagram going hashtag gifted exactly shout out Sipa and Taste Cadets as well always honestly I actually did want to say something about them because it's they really you know that initial part was i was i was giving them some every week and i was literally messaging them being like sorry is it right if you post the menu up like and it was like every uh every sunday see people would whack it on the taste cadets and and it's personal and then it just was really allowed the business to sort of grow yeah because i um did a podcast with um uh vincenzo yeah tom from vincenzos yeah and he said the same i saw exactly the same thing he It was like they just really kind of blew wind into, just by sharing, like being so safe, just sharing it, sharing it, sharing it, like consistently though.

1:04:56Honestly, yeah. I think it's, they've done that for a lot of businesses as well. I think that's what people don't really understand or don't know is that, you know, they've done that for a hell of a lot of people. They almost helped that like that really early stage just to get, because they're like the kind of the avant-garde early adopter. They're always looking for the next new thing. yeah so it just gets that like pause and gassing on those early bits of fire yeah yeah tom said the same thing it's like vincenzo's would not be where it is without them i think he was sending like cp used to like whack up videos and do like stupid shit and just like reposting the the menus and doing everything and and even like recently we've been obviously a raise and we're raising some money and then i was like i was like after you back at this on your stories and i was like actually I don't think that's a very good look and he was just like sure because I'll do it you know and it's just like it doesn't have to do that yeah it's just but that sort of thing as I say just is massive when you're first starting out if you've got that sort of someone who has a platform where they can really engage and and get people involved and it's massive but Lotta was so basically I like noticed that um like Ian was like liking all of her photos and stuff like that and then tapped her up and was basically like, oh, is it right if we can get Ian a pie, Ian write a pie?

1:06:18And then she was like, yeah, weirdly, we've got the same manager actually, so I'll hit him up. And then, yeah, there was like a sort of email engaged that night and the next thing you know, they sort of tapped us up and you had a conversation with Roscoe. Yeah. And... Happened to drop in that we were... Just happened, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, we were actually raising investment. no it wasn't that I just mentioned it and and Roscoe was like oh where are you and then the next week he was he was down trying the pies with Ian and then Ian rocked up yeah yeah but he and then he like loved it and then we were so I was having Bircher Muesli and and talking things over yeah discussing money but it was it was really he looked sad did you because obviously that how do you so I think a lot of people get that not necessarily with being right but you get to getting my mates having this earlier where they've been dealing with someone who's older has got done lots of multiple businesses isn't that it's not their first rodeo not saying it's kind of your first rodeo in terms of your own business but how do you like make sure that you get a good deal and not create a situation with like what was it like Watford like Watford yeah see someone I write is a bit of a different kettle of fish because you go like well I know what he's going to bring to the business yeah but also didn't push it wasn't it wasn't it's very natural right yeah but also you know it wasn't like you know he wasn't like well if I'm investing I want this it was like can we get to this and I was like we were like yeah I think we can but it was it was not good of scene you know it wasn't like Because I need this to get excited and it needs for me to get involved.

1:08:10Yeah, true. And that's totally like, you know, like for investors to go, this is what it would take for me to get excited for it. Then you go like, all right, well, sweet. I can get excited about you coming on board because you're going to give this. And it's like, well, we can, so we can get to that. You know what I mean? And then there's people that will come along and say exactly the same thing. I'm not that bothered. Yeah. It's so interesting. And then. Sorry. every investor is is valuable

1:08:42and then and then with this with this fundraise now with this fundraise now what's the um what's the game plan of like building this into a kind of massive pie machine if that's what i'm saying yeah yeah so this will go towards predominantly operational expenses so it'll pay salaries our wage bill is going to like double yeah you know by the end of August we would have doubled our wage bill it will go towards you know payment on machinery that we've had to get taken out on you know higher purchase agreements it will offer us runway till around May, June next year hopefully we can extend that a bit further by making some changes um in terms of like credit agreements with with suppliers and stuff credit terms um and that will see us through to our next raise which will hopefully be the last which will allow that next raise will allow us to move premises and allow us to really really output capacity and and be able to service anyone that comes knocking basically for the next sort of five to ten years amazing is the idea um so yeah this this initial raise is is um it's just extend runway and just so just ensure that we're still an ongoing concern come come you know the next financial year basically and then one thing i wanted to ask you about because i think i've in my like having a look when i was researching you talked about those pry pie presser things in the corner like that are these northern pie pressers Bolton yeah what is what do you think which pies do you recommend are better like who does pies better up north or or down south and what's the difference definitely not southerners man like I mean I'm a southerner yeah so I can say that but like I mean I I think that why though um because they care about it you know I think we don't care about it enough down here and I think it's like I mean like obviously we're in a bit of a bubble with the east end and stuff like that and obviously there's a massive history of pies where we're at but sadly that's really dying off um and it's a real shame that that's the case i mean we aren't and never have tried to compete in that market you know so i think it's really important that we're not that what so when you say that the up north market no sorry talking about here east london and sure you know pie mash sure yeah we've never tried to be that we've always wanted to go onto shelves we're not yeah brick and mortar but i think so i mean the pies up north i think it just goes hand in hand and there's something really nice about it and then i think like down here other than the bubble that we're in in terms of east london i don't think there's anyone else that does it well i don't think there is anywhere i mean like you sort of go to sort of sections of the south that obviously have the well i think like the cornish and the pasties and stuff like that there's parts which do certain aspects of pastry and you know pie-esque making well but really it's it's been quite neglected for ages and that's why we saw that gap in the market for it yeah i think i think there's there's a lot of small suppliers a lot that perhaps don't have machinations on being a next challenger brand that is insane i mean there was um the guy from turner's pies that was on the apprentice he's managed to grow his pipe in his business down on the south coast i think it's the south coast or in like kent and around there he must be doing something right they must be doing something right the pipes must be you know pretty decent but they don't seem to want to build what we want to build which is a nation a nationwide pie brand that anyone can access um up and down the country um so i think will's right i think it's been left in the hands of you know the big the big boys for a long time and no one's really trying to challenge it yeah because like a lot of the people i speak to there's always like a category that's been kind of waning or declining and then a brand comes in i don't you had a bowl bean the beans so amelia is like a really good mate of mine yeah yeah she's amazing but like i remember speaking to her about four years ago she's like i've got this idea for this bean business and she was like maniacally obsessed with it i was like fuck me like it's beans mate yeah it's fucking beans like who goes down the beans aisle i love them yeah but then i tried them and and obviously now she's fucking smashing yeah i literally like like smashing it and i think if you look for these categories not it's often not intentionally you're like kind of following your passion yeah yeah oh shit like the way i was like i said when i saw you guys like oh my god that just makes sense the pie thing and then obviously linking it with the football um but yeah is it like a dying a dying thing i remember um do you know the who's the is it uh callum franklin who does the pie as well interviewed him he was saying pie shops like back not like the east end pie shops but in like the some old times like ages ago like old old times was like a chicken shop so like like the chicken shop you have a pie shop but like and then it's now just all just kind of just he's he's associated with that um that dickinson morris are they back at melton mober they did the like famous they still have like their their store that is like a something like a three or four hundred year old cottage or something essentially that turned into a pie shop three or four hundred years ago and they still operate out of there as a as a shop and you know they who was who were we reading about the other day someone hit us up because they they want to sell their pie business but um and that's got a bit of that's got some legs on it there's wright's pies which are now huge i mean wright's they're huge you know they're massive but that started with some guy with a hand-pushed trolley in like the 1930 and like 1935 yeah so yeah back in the day before before proper fast food yeah pies were like the was the thing yeah yeah yeah some geezer on a trolley i think it's also that i mean it goes back to the australia new zealand thing because i think that's when i was over there i was like god this is so sick this is at the forefront of like everyone's like every bakery and it was like it was really nice to just pick something up and they had all these different varieties of flavors and stuff and just like you know just walk down the street munching it straight away and i feel like where we've probably gone a little bit wrong over time is always feeling like it needs accompaniments with it unless you're in like a specific location which is stadiums yeah we're happy to somehow for some reason we're we're happy actually you've only just heard me saying i know i think this is the first time but it's like you know we're only for some reason it's all right for us to stand and eat a pie like that in a football ground but on a on a if you're if you're if you're going to like a shop or something it's weird to have it without mash gravy peas you know i mean i think actually there's there's something the other thing that's gone a bit i think what we don't do very well is offering variety because we're very like steak and and ale yeah uh chicken and mushroom and then i don't know whatever steak and blue cheese or something like that yeah it's like actually you just like i'm showing a bit of fucking variety just goes a very very long way that's one thing i was that's one thing i was thinking yeah do you think um mash and gravy and peas adds to the pie experience or takes what the pie is yeah 100 but definitely not on others that's what it's like what i mean is it's like it's just it's such a blanket thing to every fucking pie and it's like well actually like say it's a chicken pie yeah but i want i don't want to like douse the fucker in gravy it just takes away from the the creaminess it just kind of it's a puff pastry and you douse that in gravy you lose all that yeah it's gone crispiness yeah but i used to do my head in over there and that'll market because i'd be like no some of some of the pies you'd have gravy and massive it which one which one should have uh i was happy with the the meat pies so if it was like a steak and then uh and then a chicken pie with mashed gravy it made sense it tasted great and stuff like that but then the vegetarian ones i always really struggled with because we change them and then they go like seasonal and they go like you know maybe just using like spring greens and cheese and stuff like that but then have a mushroom gravy over the top and it didn't quite make sense to me yeah yeah yeah it was like heavy tomato puree in the in the gravy and so it was like very like autumnal but then it had this like autumnal gravy with like a fresh cheesy like almost spanakopita like sort of stuff yeah yeah it was like nah you don't want to chuck all that sludge over the top of it because it doesn't need it yeah it doesn't need fucking mash yeah just eat it like that what do you think um ketchup on them so yeah this one's a bit this is what i'm saying but i like it so i like it sounds i don't care how fucking you know blasphemous this is but i fucking like sriracha or sometimes on a on the side yeah yeah yeah get out but that's what i'm saying but like what what um what uh the honest words god sriracha and fucking um what's the other one brown sauce it's weird as fuck yeah yeah but what do you think are some of the things that so what amelia's done with bold bean it's basically like yeah you can do beans into you can do a like uh past edition she's basically reinvented beans yeah say you guys are going to reinvent pies over the year so like part of it is like doing the basics well the three but what do you think are some of the weirdest combinations you i'm trying to get into your creative process here mate in terms of like right so you could have x pie whatever the weirdest pie you've created is yeah and then what are some other sides that people aren't necessarily thinking about other than just sludging it in gravy and mash i mean that's the beauty of what we do now is like that's up to you if you want to do that in your own home i'll do some naughty things at home mate but it's like but i don't want to serve you something that i don't think is right is what i'm trying to get at do you know what i mean so if i'm giving you if you're buying a butter chicken pie off the shelf be my guest serve it with rice and whatever the fuck you want to serve with i don't know whatever might seem right to you do you know what i mean but i'm not doing that yes do you know what i'm saying yes so i think like what we do is we're just gonna like we create these sort of like the pies which yeah as i say in my eyes it's just like that's all we're focusing on and then it's kind of nice now especially now we're away from now that you can just be like yeah that's down to the consumer it's not my because i i felt like sometimes with nettle what you should like that used to do my head in there i think that some people would try it and actually wasn't for this is that that's your like that was your like um kiosk or not kiosk like it was a yeah yeah yeah because that just what was going wrong with that or was it not going wrong but like no i think it was going slightly wrong i'll be honest i think like we because there was a bit of a disconnect with us being able to sort of like keep an eye on it and i think like it wasn't like anything was like bad but it was like it just wasn't perfect and it wasn't exactly how we wanted it to wanted it to be and i think we had issues with staffing because it's an old job you know it's quite a weird thing to fucking do yeah so you'd be a pie shot it was quite a high staff turnover do you want to be in a shed in the middle of winter probably not yeah i want to be in a shed in the middle of summer do you want to be um do you want to be serving pies from a shed probably not yes yes yes they do hello man like it was just one of those isn't it like and and i think like i it used to yeah it was one of those ones where it's just i just felt like sometimes the the the quality of the product wasn't exactly how we wanted it to be yeah i think as well it didn't help if you're a restaurant you had your menu you say well this is this dish this is this dish and that's served with x y and z and this is served with a b and c but when you are playing a little shed like that where it's like that add-on model of like these are the pies that's the price then if you want mash this is the price if you want mush peas that's the price if you want gravy that's the price and if you want all of it that's the price people can just pick and choose what they want whereas i think probably you know you don't have that ability to um to push people onto what you need go correct just say yeah yeah go for me yeah we'll wrap it up in a second anyway mate yeah i think you yeah i think that you know you don't you can't dictate to people it's not like a restaurant yeah you know yeah yeah probably why wilsham so much because he worked in a restaurant where it's like everything was paired together perfectly yeah but you know if you get you know you might go to and have a burger and then also have loaded fries and have onion rings and like yeah chicken wings they work together but you don't need yeah like you have that this is you buy this bit and this bit and you sort of make it yourself yeah it's like a completely different like where you you're the mindset going into it it's just completely different completely different yeah you're going in for an experience of like you know eating someone else's menu creation whereas in a setting like that you're going in for someone's products that you can you know pick and choose what you want in there um yeah it's completely different and then i think you know i understand why that is so frustrating you know when when you've learned to pair ingredients together and someone just coming along who doesn't necessarily think in those terms well they go like they go like well yeah i love what's your piece with that yeah yeah yeah and josh is always going to say i just feel like that's quite nice and i'm always like no no but we had it with arsenal like sent through this like uh it was like a a rough design of the kiosk and it was like um so it didn't it wasn't representative what's what's actually going up and it was like, oh, pie with beans or mash and vegan gravy or something else.