Magpye founders, Chris and Sarah Fryer, took their taste for pies to a new level and set up a tasty business after seeing a gap in the market for luxurious and uncompromising vegan comfort food.
In April 2019, Magpye began its plant powered pie journey by serving pie, mash and mushy peas on the banks of the River Tyne from a converted horsebox trailer.
It wasn’t long before people's eyes were on their pies; which are full to the brim with plant based versions of people’s traditional favourites.
Now they're the subject of our new TV advert:
This is their inspirational story.
Ful(filling) their potential
Neither Chris or Sarah were trained chefs, but they were determined to pursue their passion for pies.
“We sold our first pie in April 2019, prior to this it took us around a year to perfect our pastry and filling and get our horse box ready to go,” said Chris.
“We learned so much from the first event that it took us another 6 weeks to trade again to enable us to implement everything we felt needed to change.”
Whilst Chris and Sarah set about perfecting the ingredients for their recipe for business success, they quickly learned that resilience and flexibility were important factors when starting a new venture.
“We had learned the important lesson that building and planning your business with flexibility and adaptability in mind to enable you to quickly adjust to changing market conditions is absolutely vital in our sector.”
This attitude served them well. When COVID-19 struck, Magpye swiftly migrated their efforts online. Chris explained: “We tried to react as quickly as possible to the situation in March, when it became clear that our entire planned income for the year had been almost entirely lost. We did not even have a website and, using GoDaddy's site builder, were able to go from this to selling our first pie online in less than a week, and this gave us some hope and something to build on.”
Before pivoting online, Magpye had served hot and baked-at-home Plant Powered Pies from their converted horse box trailer at a variety of markets and events, but the national lockdown meant an online presence would be vital to the continuation of their business and satisfying their customers' appetites.
"When asked how GoDaddy's online store builder helped them to succeed online, Chris replied: “Firstly, the GoDaddy Website Builder was extremely speedy to use and, for us, resulted in a really slick and professional website. We built our site in just one morning."
“We then moved onto making use of the marketing tools, we have found the huge range of stock photography inspiring and useful. We know there are features we have not even used yet, such as the email marketing tools, that will help us when we need them to.”
Their swift shift online meant it wasn’t long before customers were flocking to them. It just goes to show that you don’t need to make a meal out of building a website!
Keep your eyes on the pies
The husband and wife team behind Magpye owe a lot to their determination and can-do attitude. “We have found that trying to look at every challenge, however difficult it may seem to overcome at the time, as a chance to learn and to get better helps us to keep progressing.
“Eventually the hard work begins to pay off and it is very satisfying to meet your goals and that is what keeps us going.”
And their entrepreneurial spirit is paying off, as they have lovingly created an upper-crust business with a website to suit all tastes.
“We are very focused on producing the very best pies we can, so success for us simply lies in having happy customers.” said Chris.
“We really love it when our delightful customers say nice things about our pies and even more when they post photos of amazing dinners with our pies as the centerpiece.”
So, what’s next for Magpye, aside from creating even more very tasty vegan pies?
“We are looking at expanding our product range to enable us to build on our successful launch of a national pies-by-post service, and we’re moving into retail wholesale. We have so many ideas for new pies and maybe even something sweet will make an appearance.”
When asked what advice he has for someone just starting out, Chris replied: “Be prepared to change and adapt, and most of all stick at it!”
You can take a look at Magpye’s tasty website here and connect with them on social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Feeling inspired…
At GoDaddy we’re all about empowering every idea, business, side hustle or nonprofit cause to claim their place online and look great at the same time.
If you’re looking for your recipe for online success and feeling inspired by Chris and Sarah’s story, we’re standing by ready to help.
And guess what? We love hearing about your success stories. In fact, we want to shout about them! Get in touch with us on social media and share a link to your website and we may well be in touch to feature you on our blog.
