National Pie Day: Weegmanns Otley Pork Pies

National World - LocalTV

What’s your favourite pie? To mark National Pie Day on 23rd January, Weegmanns Butcher in Otley reveal how they make pork pies and how they became ‘The Pork Pie People.’

Transcript

00:00 With meat and potato pie in third and shepherd's pie in second, the mighty pork pie is the

00:06 most popular pie in Leeds according to online mentions.

00:10 Weegemans Butcher in Otley is renowned for its pork pies, selling around 3,000 of them

00:15 per week.

00:16 But how do they become the pork pie people?

00:18 Let's meet owner Richard Smithson to find out.

00:21 My parents took on the shop from the Weegeman family in 1969.

00:28 They'd actually run it for 100 years.

00:31 And then my dad eventually retired about 20 years ago and I took it on from there.

00:37 So I've worked here for 40 years.

00:40 So I know that's hard to believe looking at me.

00:44 We don't do wholesale, we just, everything goes through the shop.

00:46 We don't supply anybody else unless they come in and get them.

00:51 But yeah, we've just got a good following with a good product.

00:55 Have you ever wondered how pork pies are made?

00:58 Chef Scott Freeman has been coming to Weegemans since he was in a pram and he's been baking

01:02 pork pies and other goods here for around seven years.

01:05 All the pastry is made here from scratch.

01:07 So we make it the old fashioned way with boiling water, salt, lard, flour, that thoroughly

01:13 gets mixed through.

01:14 Then once it's at the right stage, we put it into the machine that divides it all for

01:18 the little tins that we later will press.

01:22 Once they're all done, we put them to the side within the same machine.

01:25 We'll put all the meat in that weighs it all out for us.

01:27 So it's always exactly the same way all the time.

01:31 And then we'll go into the pie machine.

01:33 There's always three of us that are on the pie machine.

01:35 One will be putting the tins in and taking them out.

01:37 One will be putting the meat in and one will be putting the lids in.

01:39 And that is, once it's done, the pies are at that stage all done until they're baked.

01:44 Then they come over to my side, I bake them, glaze them, gravy them, and they're ready

01:48 for the shop.

01:49 All the meat's obviously local, as much as we can get everything as local as we can in

01:54 the area.

01:55 But, yeah, it's down to ingredients and trying to keep it as consistent as you can in a changing

02:01 world.

02:02 Whether it's National Pie Day, marked on the 23rd of January, or bonfire season when

02:06 Weegemans produce double the amount of pies, pork pies are popular all year round.

02:11 Over Christmas it was just under half a tonne of lard for the pastry.

02:14 There was about 50, 16 kilo bags of flour.

02:19 Two metric tonnes of pork was ordered in for, just for the pork pies.

02:23 And I think we made, of the largest size, probably about 4,000 of them in three or four

02:29 days.

02:30 And plus a lot of the other sizes, plus the normal sized pork pies, it's kind of a crazy

02:34 time of year is Christmas here.

02:36 It's a good value food, to be fair.

02:39 In this day and age you can feed a family of four reasonably with peas or whatever,

02:44 or chips.

02:45 You know, you can have it hot, you can have it cold.

02:48 It's just a general good product to live on, really.

02:53 You've got a lot of loyal customers, as others.

02:57 We've another two butchers in Otley, which have all got a good following.

03:01 And to be fair, you need that to survive.

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