Who Ate All the Pies?

The humble New Zealand pie contributes over 140 million dollars a year to the economy.

– Presenter Jon Bridges, early in this documentary

Well, it was called the Horny Cow, which was a wonderful name, but my daughters said that, no, they wouldn't come and help me unless I changed the name. They weren't prepared to have that written across their chest, no.

– Connelly Cottage Cafe owner Maryanne Elliott

I've been eating two pies a day, everyday, for the eight years I've been here, and I love Big Ben pies! Well, you can see, my stomach's a bit of a big old roly-poly.

– Big Ben Pies packer Jason Jones

Well it probably started one day when I bought this pie at this small shop in the middle of the North Island somewhere . . . 10 k's on down the road, and I bit into this thing. It was like a biscuit — dry, hard! So anyway, that was it. So I threw it back on the seat, turned the car around, went back to this guy in the shop. I chased him around the counter with it until I got him with it. And I threw it at him. And from then on I thought one day I'm gonna stop and I'm gonna make myself a decent pie.

– Barry Buckrell, founder of BJ's Bakery, describes the origins of his Hastings pie shop

People who excavated Pompeii and Herculaneum excavated bakers shops that had pies in them.

– Food historian Tony Simpson on the pie's origins nearly 2000 years ago

...pies are really a sometimes food. It's about once a month I'd say is what you should be aiming to eat your pies . . . Not one a day. It's not a snack food.

– Andrea Lloyd from the Heart Foundation is not a fan of pies

Kiwis are all about pies. We wolf down more pies per head of population than almost any other country on earth.

– Presenter Jon Bridges introduces the topic of this documentary