Fat Bastard Pies launched its Pie Club delivery service in July.
The service provides a chilled box of eight fresh pies every month to hungry New Zealanders around the country who are prepared to pay for the pleasure and subscribe.
Marketing manager Simon Owen said he and owner James Owen had been blown away by the response.
"It was kind of an unknown about what would happen because it's a world first, pioneering a new thing. You never know what tomorrow is gonna be like."
About 1800 subscribers have signed up to the Pie Club already this month, which roughly works out to 14,400 pies that need to be delivered.
Mr Owen said just because there is plenty of demand, quality would not be compromised. The trick was simply to get more pies out the door.
"We've got a capacity limit, and the Pie Club will always be limited in terms of what we can do. We'll grow that [numbers]over time, but we’ve got to be in control, and this is a way of us keeping that quality control."
"We've got quite strict processes around quality in what we do and making sure that when we do take on new staff, they've got enough training to make the pies that we want because our whole brand isn’t gourmet ... We won’t have a salmon and cream cheese, a nacho-flavoured pie and ridiculous stuff, it’s really just the classics. Good pies done well."
He said despite orders this side of Christmas having reached their production limit, Fat Bastards has now launched Pie Club vouchers.
"So you can actually purchase a gift voucher to give away as a Christmas present. These have ‘It’s an ideal gift for a fat bastard’, written on them."
With most of their subscribers being North Island-based, Mr Owen said word of mouth played a large role in increasing the popularity of the pie service although they had no plans for expansion any time soon.
"Having this [Invercargill] as the home of the Fat Bastards, there's something exciting about seeing that line out the front door. There's vibrancy, so that means something. Whereas if you're spread everywhere from a physical store location, you kind of lose that magic"
He said the duo had turned down several opportunities to distribute their pies through other venues, and had limited the options of purchasing the pies to either buying directly from their Tay St store or through the Pie Club.
"We wanted to do good pies to the best of our ability, and the best way to do that is to get the product directly to the customer."
By: Ben Tomsett
