‘Collapse’: Aussie icon in ‘severe decline’

The nationwide accounts got here out this month, and as all the time, the information contains a number of essential details about issues like per capita GDP and web nationwide disposable revenue. But my favorite half is all the time meat pie spending.

If you already know the place to look, you discover the nationwide Bureau of Statistics tracks pie spending carefully.

Recently it reveals a structural collapse. Pie consumption is down a catastrophic 40 per cent from its peak, as the subsequent chart reveals.

As you may see, pie consumption was rising strongly pre-pandemic, albeit with a sample the place pies are extra well-liked in soccer season.

There have been two robust three-month durations over winter, then two weaker three-month durations in summer season.

In the pandemic, it modified. In 2020, we ate a great deal of pies all yr lengthy.

But extra lately, pie consumption fell arduous. In winter 2022 we ate fewer pies, after which over summer season there was an infinite collapse.

Did we burn our mouths on one time too many? Or did the worth of a pie get too excessive within the sky? Pie costs have actually risen. It actually seems we’re over the standard pie.

What’s happening?

I obtained onto Patties Pies who personal Four ‘N Twenty, and they insisted Aussies are still buying their wares.

“[I]n 2023 we are seeing even more Australians than ever enjoying a comforting pie,” said Anand Surujpal, GM of Marketing and Innovation at Patties Foods.

“Sales of Herbert Adams have grown by more than 20 per cent compared to the previous year and this weekend thousands of Aussies will pick up a Four’N Twenty as they cheer on their crew on the footy.”

If that’s true, it leaves us with a little bit of a thriller, on condition that they personal so most of the main meat pie manufacturers.

The information above comes from supermarkets and bakeries and it doesn’t embody takeaway retailers. That’s vital context for understanding the pandemic rise – trapped at dwelling, we have been shopping for pies from the grocery store, not the service station.

But it doesn’t clarify why, post-pandemic, we’re shopping for fewer grocery store and bakery pies than in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Unless we purchase much more takeaway pies than ever earlier than and fewer from supermarkets and bakeries?

Pies don’t appear to me just like the type of luxurious you surrender in a cost-of-living disaster – fairly the alternative.

Popping a pie within the oven and having sauce that doesn’t price 50 cents for just a little squeezy pack feels frugal. A bit of deal with as an alternative of going out in town.

Baker’s man

Could the upper worth of pie filling clarify it, or is it one thing else?

The rising worth of beef and crust is little doubt making the pie business a really arduous one (a Four’N Twenty is 25 per cent beef at a minimal, they promise).

But is that this extra of a cultural shift? Do we eat pizza extra as of late? Is the period of the meat pie fading, like a Four’N Twenty wrapper within the solar? The information actually suggests so.

This is what makes the demise of the pie even sadder – Aussies are nonetheless spending a fortune on different forms of ready meals to eat at dwelling.

As the subsequent chart reveals, we’re loco for the opposite types of belongings you would possibly decide up at a bakery – cheesymite scrolls and pizza slices, and so on.

Just not the standard pie.

The counting home

Patties Foods is a proud firm that makes Four’N Twenty pies in rural Victoria.

But Patties is just not Australian-owned any extra.

Once upon a time, it was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, however in 2016 it was purchased by a non-public fairness firm known as Pacific Equity Partners.

In 2021, that proprietor bought it off to a different non-public fairness known as Pacific Alliance Group (PAG), primarily based in Hong Kong. They obtained Patties’ different manufacturers within the deal: Herbert Adams, Nannas, Boscastle and so on (and purchased Lean Cuisine on the similar time too).

PAG has type relating to promoting off an organization that immediately drops lifeless. They have been the homeowners of Dick Smith which they bought onto the inventory market, solely to have it collapse shortly afterwards.

Is that what occurred right here?

Well, as talked about earlier, Patties Pies insist Aussies are nonetheless shopping for their pies. So lengthy as that’s true, we are able to’t blame non-public fairness this time.

Patties are spending up large on advertising and marketing – NBA participant Ben Simmons is a model ambassador for Four ‘N Twenty Pies, and so are the rock band The Living End. They’re making an attempt to make meat pies cool and related.

But the information means that for many Australians, that advertising and marketing hasn’t lower by way of sufficient to make us need to take pies dwelling.

For most Australian households, the pie has been … dropped.

Jason Murphy is an economist | @jasemurphy. He is the creator of the e-book Incentivology.