Chemist cooking up new career – as a pie-maker

May 13 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A PHARMACEUTICALS expert has swapped the lab for the chemistry of cooking in his bid to create the perfect pie.

Michael Maughan and his partner Rachel Styles decided to start their own business producing the ultimate pie after being unable to find one they believed fitted the bill on sale.

And it seems other people share their tastes because their fledging business Northern Pie has been selling out almost as quickly as they can bake the products. The secret is partly in the range of ingredients which stretches from meat sourced from local butchers to unusual fillings including smoked saveloy and pease pudding, crocodile, springbok and ostrich.

Mr Maughan said: “We found a wholesaler of exotic meats. We both wanted to try crocodile so we thought why not try it in a pie? It has a coarse, monkfish-like texture. It doesn’t have a fish taste. There has been a lot of interest from people who just want to try it. I wouldn’t sell something I couldn’t eat myself.”

The pies were previously only available via the Northern Pie stall at the Sunday Quayside market in Newcastle but Mr Maughan hopes to introduce them to new customers when they take a stall outside the city’s Civic Centre on Friday and Saturday as part of the Eat! NewcastleGateshead food festival. The business has big plans to expand and has recently bought additional refrigeration and pastry making equipment so more pies can be prepared in advance. Mr Maughan said: “We are finding it hard to keep up with demand. We can’t make enough pies. We have bought a blast chiller so we can freeze them before we cook them, so we will be able to cook pies to demand. We have had our kitchen converted and we are converting one of our spare rooms into a refrigeration area. We are looking for bigger premises but we don’t want to become mass produced. We don’t want to get away from the hand-baked pies.”

Around 150 pies are produced on a Saturday for the Sunday market. However, Mr Maughan said the new equipment would allow the business to develop into selling ‘pies by post’ via its website. Customers would order from an online menu, with their selections cooked to order then posted.

The business is a major change from Mr Maughan’s previous career. After achieving a PhD in chemistry, he spent five years working in the pharmaceuticals industry.

“It was quite a leap. I left my job in February and we started gearing up to do our first market,” said Mr Maughan. “We are growing as rapidly as we can. We have come on in leaps and bounds.”