What’s your favourite pie? To mark National Pie Day on 23rd January, Weegmanns Butcher in Otley reveal how they make pork pies and how they became ‘The Pork Pie People.’
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00:00 With meat and potato pie in third and shepherd's pie in second, the mighty pork pie is the
00:06 most popular pie in Leeds according to online mentions.
00:10 Weegemans Butcher in Otley is renowned for its pork pies, selling around 3,000 of them
00:15 per week.
00:16 But how do they become the pork pie people?
00:18 Let's meet owner Richard Smithson to find out.
00:21 My parents took on the shop from the Weegeman family in 1969.
00:28 They'd actually run it for 100 years.
00:31 And then my dad eventually retired about 20 years ago and I took it on from there.
00:37 So I've worked here for 40 years.
00:40 So I know that's hard to believe looking at me.
00:44 We don't do wholesale, we just, everything goes through the shop.
00:46 We don't supply anybody else unless they come in and get them.
00:51 But yeah, we've just got a good following with a good product.
00:55 Have you ever wondered how pork pies are made?
00:58 Chef Scott Freeman has been coming to Weegemans since he was in a pram and he's been baking
01:02 pork pies and other goods here for around seven years.
01:05 All the pastry is made here from scratch.
01:07 So we make it the old fashioned way with boiling water, salt, lard, flour, that thoroughly
01:13 gets mixed through.
01:14 Then once it's at the right stage, we put it into the machine that divides it all for
01:18 the little tins that we later will press.
01:22 Once they're all done, we put them to the side within the same machine.
01:25 We'll put all the meat in that weighs it all out for us.
01:27 So it's always exactly the same way all the time.
01:31 And then we'll go into the pie machine.
01:33 There's always three of us that are on the pie machine.
01:35 One will be putting the tins in and taking them out.
01:37 One will be putting the meat in and one will be putting the lids in.
01:39 And that is, once it's done, the pies are at that stage all done until they're baked.
01:44 Then they come over to my side, I bake them, glaze them, gravy them, and they're ready
01:48 for the shop.
01:49 All the meat's obviously local, as much as we can get everything as local as we can in
01:54 the area.
01:55 But, yeah, it's down to ingredients and trying to keep it as consistent as you can in a changing
02:01 world.
02:02 Whether it's National Pie Day, marked on the 23rd of January, or bonfire season when
02:06 Weegemans produce double the amount of pies, pork pies are popular all year round.
02:11 Over Christmas it was just under half a tonne of lard for the pastry.
02:14 There was about 50, 16 kilo bags of flour.
02:19 Two metric tonnes of pork was ordered in for, just for the pork pies.
02:23 And I think we made, of the largest size, probably about 4,000 of them in three or four
02:29 days.
02:30 And plus a lot of the other sizes, plus the normal sized pork pies, it's kind of a crazy
02:34 time of year is Christmas here.
02:36 It's a good value food, to be fair.
02:39 In this day and age you can feed a family of four reasonably with peas or whatever,
02:44 or chips.
02:45 You know, you can have it hot, you can have it cold.
02:48 It's just a general good product to live on, really.
02:53 You've got a lot of loyal customers, as others.
02:57 We've another two butchers in Otley, which have all got a good following.
03:01 And to be fair, you need that to survive.