NZ’s first pie subscription service: How does a pie get from Invercargill to Auckland?

Craving the fresh taste of Southland from your Auckland flat? Fat Bastard Pies are now sending pies cross-country from Invercargill.

In a world where you can get your favourite clothes and takeaways delivered straight to your home, it only makes sense our unofficial national dish would be the next package landing on our doorsteps.

Fat Bastard Pies have launched New Zealand’s first pie subscription service, an idea that co-owners and cousins Simon and James Owen have been cooking up for years.

For $65 per order, customers can pick out the eight pies you want delivered from their list of eleven fillings, then sit back and let the pies come to you in an overnight delivery.

READ MORE:
* New Zealand’s best small town bakeries: The pie stops we missed
* Invercargill pie maker brings forward plans to increase production
* Christchurch man flown to Invercargill for a pie

We tracked Fast Bastard Pies’ first release of their nation-wide subscription service from the making of the dough at the bottom of the South Island, to the heated pies resting in the bellies of the Stuff team in central Auckland.

Crafting up in Invercargill

Invercargill’s Fat Bastard Pies is a brand so beloved in the South that 3500 Cantabrians entered a 2018 competition to be flown to Invercargill to eat their pies and the city’s mayoral debate even included the make-or-break question of which Fat Bastard Pies flavour is best.

Customers who have been to Invercargill, tasted Fat Bastard pies and returned to hometowns across the country started to send requests to the company asking for shipments of their products.

Of course, the process isn’t as simple as wrapping up a pie and popping it in the postbox, and distributing pies through supermarkets and opening other stores wasn’t on their agenda, so they spent three years figuring out how to make a pie shipment possible.

The Owens announced their pie club ambition first in 2019, but the Covid-19 pandemic and logistical issues kept them from debuting their new business venture until this year.

The delays didn’t deter fans, though. They have over 1000 Pie Club members already, meaning over 8000 pies will be sent out the coming weeks.

Pastries and fillings are crafted in-house at Fat Bastard’s Tay Street location, with flavours ranging from Classic Mince, to the bestselling Creamy Farmhouse Chicken, and the more adventurous Big Nude Seafood.

All pies, in-store and for the subscription box, are made fresh, so the treats you eat when your box arrives have only been kept chilled for a day.

In an effort to stay environmentally conscious – and to keep the pies chilled on their cross-country journey – Fat Bastards line the box with wool that would have otherwise been thrown out by farmers, and frozen gel packets that can be reused in the home as ice packs.

After the packaging process is complete, the pies are loaded onto a truck to be taken on their journey to bring South Island flavours across the nation.

Pie in the sky

To get from Invercargill to Auckland (or Wellington, or Tauranga, or wherever you’re ordering from) lickety-split, your only option is air travel.

You’ll be notified when your order is picked up from Invvercargill and sent on its way through email updates.

The orders are on an overnight delivery schedule.

Arriving in Auckland

Our pie order arrived in perfectly presented condition at the reception of the Stuff office in Ponsonby, a day after placing our order.

We received email updates on the tracking of the pie, so we could pinpoint each moment of its journey.

The pies arrived chilled and were kept cool in the fridge before being photographed, cooked, and eaten

Video journalist Chris McKeen raved about his Little Fat Lamb pie, lifestyle reporter Jonny Mahon-Heap’s Veggie Thai Curry hit the spot, and I’m left wondering what other hidden secrets Invercargill has up its sleeve after trying the Cranberry, Chicken, and Brie.

A little bit of Southland’s ingenuity, now in the bellies of Aucklanders.