Great Northern Pie Co

Great North Pie Co. were founded by husband and wife team, Neil and Sarah Broomfield. The North West based business stocks its traditional handcrafted pies to consumers across the UK.

Before starting the business, Neil gained experience working with some of the UK’s most renowned chefs, including Paul Heathcoate MBE and Jeff Baker, who brought the first Michelin star to Leeds. In 2011, alongside his full-time job as a police officer, Neil went on to create the brand’s famous all-butter pastry pies from the couple’s kitchen, using local ingredients and baking in the family’s domestic oven to supply local farmer’s markets and restaurants.

Over the last eleven years the company has grown immensely and the kitchen is now permanently housed at the brand’s warehouse and bakery in Wilmslow. The team still use the same method of small batch cooking and baking to ensure every pie is handcrafted with care.

The team prides itself on using local ingredients to create their traditionally Northern pies with all-butter pastry and seasonal fillings. Every four months, the menu is rotated but the original and signature Lancashire Cheese & Onion pie is available all year round.

Co-founder Neil said, “We always wanted to make Great North Pie Co. a really good example of regional food. You get the Cornish pasty in Cornwall, and pork pies in Melton Mowbray, and so we wanted to make a really good version of the Lancashire cheese & onion pie. It’s the pie that won us the award in 2011, and it gave us the belief to give up our jobs and bake full time. It’s the pie that got our business going.”

Since launching, the company has won in nine categories at the British Pie Awards and took the crown for the entire competition in 2015. Neil then went on to judge the coveted pie awards, and the brand has most recently been listed as a finalist in the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming Awards.

Great North Pie Co. has cafes in both Altrincham and Ambleside in the Lake District, with another set to open later this year on one of Manchester’s only remaining cobbled streets, Little David Street at Kampus.

Neil added, “We’ve never had ambitions to be one of the biggest pie companies, and this is still the case. We just want to take something simple and create a real quality version of it, hoping people enjoy what we do.”

We are delighted to have been stocking their handcrafted pies since 2018 and remain loyal supporters.

Sarah notes, “When Booths originally got in touch back in 2011 we were still making pies from home, they were our dream supplier and so it was mind blowing that they got in touch. We needed to do a lot of work to be able to share our pies with their customers, and the whole Booths team were incredibly supportive as we worked towards what we needed to supply them.

As a local brand, Booths were always the best fit for Great North Pie Co and we use many of their other local suppliers as ingredients for our products. We’re proud to have grown from our tiny kitchen to our bakery in Wilmslow with their ongoing support.”