Looking to make a crust? Wisey's Pies seeks new owner

Wisey's Pies has been placed on the market for sale.

Wisey's Pies in Onekawa has been making tasty morsels for 10 years and is looking for a new owner.

Last year it achieved a turnover of $1.3 million and an A-grade food-safety rating.

The brand is well known thanks to sponsorship of stock cars at Meeanee Speedway and the Taylor Hawks National Basketball League team.

The bakery operates out of a leased, purpose-built 670sq m premises with ample parking.

It employs seven full-time bakers and service staff, with two additional part-timers working the Saturday morning shift. The bakery is closed on Saturday afternoons and Sundays.

Bayleys salesman Gary Wise, coincidentally the brother of the owner, said it had both retail and wholesale income streams supplying baked products to schools, cafes, clubs and caterers.

"While there is excellent penetration in the Napier wholesale market, there is the potential to expand sales to the wider Hawke's Bay region, similar to what Maketu Pies has achieved from small beginnings in a Bay of Plenty town to now having a presence throughout the North Island," Mr Wise said.

"From a retail perspective the business benefits from being totally vertically integrated - selling everything it makes on site and therefore having to avoid buying in finished product.

"Wisey's is the biggest baked-goods shop in Onekawa, and is well-supported by the high volume of foot traffic consumers working in the surrounding industrial premises."

Revenues increased by 25 per cent over the five years to 2012, with gross profit rising by 14 per cent over the same period. Chattels included commercial ovens, walk-in chiller rooms, dough mixers, cookers, cooling racks and cabinets.

Mr Wise said the traditional Kiwi pie had come a long way since its inception early last century, with flavours now embracing mince and gravy, mince and cheese, steak and gravy, steak and cheese, chicken and vegetable, gourmet meat such as wild pork and venison, vegetarian, bacon and egg, gourmet fruit, potato top, fish, Thai curry, and Indian curry.

Figures from food manufacturing body Food Standards Australia New Zealand show New Zealand bakers produced 66 million pies in 2016, with the average Kiwi consuming 15. Australians gobbled their way through an average of 12 meat pies person over the same period.

The Food Standards Code stipulates a meat pie must contain at least 25 per cent of meat flesh. The remaining 75 per cent must consist of pastry, gravy and vegetable protein.