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Q&A: Patties Foods boss on Boscastle acquisition

Patties Foods BoscastleAustralian food giant Patties Foods has continued its string of acquisitions with the recent purchase of gourmet pie business Boscastle. 

Boscastle will remain an out-of-home product in cafes and restaurants, providing Patties with the ability to deliver a new range of artisan products to its customers.

Patties confirmed it will be business as usual for the new addition to the growing stable of brands, whilst leveraging from its supply chain and sales capability.

Inside FMCG spoke to Patties Foods CEO Paul Hitchcock about the purchase, the growing pie brand portfolio and future plans for the business.

Inside FMCG: Congrats on the recent purchase. What are your plans for the Boscastle brand?

Paul Hitchcock: We’re really excited about the Boscastle joining the Patties Foods family and the plan in the next two years is to make these handcrafted premium pies available nationwide.

We want to take this strong Victorian brand and leverage the great supply chain we have at Patties to make premium, hand-finished pies available to all Australians, by reaching out to more up market retailers, and the foodservice sector – including cafes, restaurants and caterers.

Inside FMCG: Most of Boscastle’s sales are currently concentrated in Victoria, do you have plans to focus more on NSW and Queensland?

At this stage, 80 per cent of Boscastle’s sales comes from Victoria, but we now have Patties strong sales force to drive distribution of the brand across Australia, including New South Wales and Queensland over the next 24 months.

Inside FMCG: What’s in the pipeline in the way of new products and marketing strategies?

Boscastle has a great range of artisan handmade pies, including smaller party pies, sausage rolls and pies with interesting flavours that customers love. At Patties, we always listen to our consumers and their feedbacks and ideas are the essential inspiration for our products. We create new products that are relevant to our consumers taste and people always wants to try new things and one thing we are looking more into at the moment are making more vegetarian pies and Boscastle’s insight is a great resource for this ideation.

Inside FMCG: Gourmet usually connotes expensive. How do you think consumers will react to it?

We have listened to our customers and they are looking for quality products. These premium pies are sold at slightly higher prices than regular pies and we know people are happy to pay for a handcrafted good quality pie.

Inside FMCG: Will Patties Foods expand Boscastle outside Australia?

The main focus for Boscastle at this stage is to make the brand more recognised on a national level. Saying that, seeing the success we have had with Four’N Twenty in the US, there is definitely potential to expand beyond Australia down the track.

Inside FMCG: Any future collaborations consumers can look forward to?  

We’re always looking to innovate, and we got a few ideas up our sleeves, so you will just have to wait and see.

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