Pastry!

According to historians, records show that the Romans would use meats, mussels, fish, and oysters as a filling; encased within a mixture of flour, oil, and water to keep everything in place. This pastry was often tough and inedible, intended to be thrown away after use.

As the quality of ingredients and cooking methods improved over time, the pastry was passed down to servants as a meal in itself, while the rich feasted on the contents.

The most expensive pie!

That’ll be £1024 per slice. The Fence Gate Inn (located in Lancashire) sold a one-off creation in segments to eight guests on November 14, 2005. The whole thing cost a whopping £8195 – roughly the same as a second-hand Jaguar saloon.

Such expense was validated by ingredients including £500 worth of Japanese wagyu beef fillet, winter black truffles, and wildly expensive French Bluefoot mushrooms. Not only that, but the recipe used edible gold leaf, and called for gravy to be boiled from two bottles of vintage 1982 Chateau Mouton Rothschild wine.

The final ingredient in the uber-expensive pie? A healthy amount of fabled Chinese Mutsutake mushroom; a substance so lucrative that it’s grown under guard and can trade hands for upwards of £750 per kilo.

Britain’s best-selling pie?

Britain’s best selling, convenience store-bought pie in 2019? That’ll be Discover The Choice Cottage Pie, price marked ‘2 for £5’, with 5.81% of total sales value. The remainder of the top 5 include:

Wright Meat Potato Pie (4.82%)
Youngs Admirals Pie – Price Marked £1.59 (4.63%)
Discover The Choice Shepherd’s Pie – Price Marked 2 for £5 (3.28%)
Peters Wrapped Minced Beef & Onion Pie (3.25%)

For more information on UK pie sales data, get in touch with our sales team.