Featured, Need to Know, Our Pies, Our Story, Uncategorised
The Ali Baa Baa Pie is a Significant Lamb Pie
Brockleby’s popular Ali Baa Baa Pie, once known as the Moroccan Lamb Pie, was responsible for the advent of Brockleby’s Pies back in 2004! With twenty years of Pie Making behind him, the Managing Director, Ian, can look back at the business which he first started in his garden shed!
How did the Ali Baa Baa come about?
Ian’s family has farmed in the Vale of Belvoir for the last five hundred years. It was only natural for him to follow in their footsteps. His passion was to develop the connection between agriculture and food. The family business was centred upon agriculture and equine. After a couple of years of working, Ian began raising a herd of Hebredean Sheep in partnership with the Nottingham Wildlife Trust. It was from here that he created the first pie.
In the beginning, he butchered and retailed lamb and mutton selling joints, lamb pies and burgers. He soon realised the need for a retail outlet. What better place to open a farm shop than in the Rural Capital of Food? In the momentous year of 2004 not only did Ian begin to build the farm shop here at Asfordby Hill, Melton Mowbray but also he created the original Moroccan Lamb Pie! Cliché or not, it was genuinely from his garden shed!!
The doom and gloom of the credit crunch in 2008 was not quite what you might expect for Brockleby’s. Although the Farm Shop sales dropped significantly, pie sales rose! Ever the entrepreneur, Ian reinvented his business and so Brockleby’s became pie makers. Suitably located, the next pie on the menu was of course, the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie. We are very proud to be one of the few producers to hold the Protected Geographical Indicator (PGI). This means that we are licensed to make the authentic product and indeed we are the only authentic producer to make them by hand.
We began sharing our pork pie making skills with the public in 2006 with occasional classes.
And so the pie range grew as did the number of food awards. They were soon on sale up and down the country at markets, shows and events. You would also find them on the shelves at Waitrose, the Coop and available through Ocado.
And today?
Today, the landscape has changed again. We move with the times and you can certainly refer to us as a dynamic entity! Whilst we continue to attend markets, shows and events, we no longer sell through the supermarkets but instead support small independent retailers. Mail order is of course hugely popular as home delivery is very much the norm. Interest in our pie making continues resulting in us today running eight full food experience classes a week across pie making, bread and sausage making.
The peak of Brockleby’s success came in our nineteenth year in 2023. Whilst we have won over thirty British Pie Awards, the ultimate in this arena had, until this point, evaded us! We were absolutely delighted last year for our Moo and Blue Pie to be crowned The British Pie Awards Supreme Champion Pie at the most prestigious of pie awards. The recognition both in this country but also across the world has been phenomenal. We were especially pleased to be bringing the top industry award back to where it belongs in the Rural Capital of Food, Melton Mowbray.
Brockleby’s is a family business in the true sense of the word. Ian’s father and sister look after the herd of Hereford cows, his daughter Tabitha works at occasional markets and events and Max, scooped Young Pie Maker of The Year at the British Pie Awards last year.
When you buy a Brockleby’s Pie you are supporting a local, hard working team of professionals who champion good food. We thank you for your ongoing support. Here’s to the next twenty years! What will be next?!
