Eddie and Erika Grooten came to New Zealand in search of adventure; what they got was mince pies and custard squares. It was 1981, and the newly arrived Dutch immigrants bought themselves a small dairy/bakehouse operation in the north Auckland seaside settle-ment of Red Beach.

The dairy/bakehouse was turning over just $60,000 a year, but the Grootens saw potential in the bakery side of the business. Small beginnings, but Eddie Grooten had plenty of ambition. “I thought that if we could double the business or maybe a little bit more then we’d have a good, sustainable operation.”

Today, that business, Dad’s Pies, specialises in making pies, sausage rolls and savouries — and doesn’t appear the worse for ditching the custard squares. Now based in Silverdale, north of Auckland, the company turns over $11 million annually.

Statistics New Zealand reckons Kiwis chomped through around $113 million worth of pies in the year ended June 2004, and Dad’s Pies has built a booming business around feeding that pastry-hungry population. It holds around 9% of the domestic market, ranking it among the country’s top-five largest pie makers, according to managing director Eddie Grooten. About to celebrate 25 years in the pie-making trade, the company recently recorded its first month of sales totalling more than $1 million.

Despite the company’s market share, even devoted pie eaters may not recognise the Dad’s Pies name; 96% of the company’s pies are sold unbranded. But if you’ve picked up a pie at a BP service station — collectively the stations are Dad’s Pies’ largest customer — then you’re probably familiar with the company’s work.

Dad’s Pies has positioned itself at the premium end of the market, making 22 different pie flavours — from your standard mince and cheese, to more exotic varieties such as Thai chicken. High-quality ingredients are a hallmark of the products, says Grooten, but the product recipe is only one element of the recipe for a good business. Other crucial factors, he says, are a willingness to plough money back into the company; investment in technology and food safety systems; and honest, open relationships with suppliers, customers and staff.

Grooten was only 27 years old when he and Erika arrived in New Zealand and took over the dairy/bakehouse. The summer of 1981 was a scorcher and holidaymakers turned out in droves — and ate a lot of pies. “They all looked tanned and relaxed,” says Grooten, “but we looked like zombies. We worked 24/7.” Two years later the business was turning over $360,000 a year and employing up to 14 staff — the pattern of the business growing well beyond expectation had begun.

The company’s success soon spawned a rival operation — the rather unimaginatively titled Mum’s Pies, in nearby Browns Bay. But by 1984, the Grootens were able to buy out the competition, going into a 50/50 partnership with one of their employees (whose share of that business they eventually bought out in 1991).

They kept the Mum’s Pies brand going alongside Dad’s until 1987, when the Grootens bought the Wholesale Bakery in Silverdale. The move allowed them to combine their operations under one roof and sell all the pies under the Dad’s Pies brand.

When you keep growing your business, however, you keep running out of space.

“After six months the building wasn’t big enough, so we took over the building next door. We ended up doing that three times,” says Grooten. The next move was to a purpose-built 1,390m2 plant on the company’s current Silverdale site in 2001. But, true to form, growth exceeded expectations, and in 2004 construction began on a 1,490m2 extension to the plant, to be officially opened next month.

Managing growth, unsurprisingly, has been the company’s biggest challenge, says Grooten. He and Erika remain the company’s sole shareholders and maintaining ownership under expansion pressure has meant constantly ploughing profits back into the company — since 2001 alone they’ve spent about $9 million on plant extensions.

That investment has gone into quality food safety and handling systems, and leading-edge plant equipment and technology. To say Grooten is particular about food safety standards is an understatement. The plant is HACCP approved and will soon be compliant with stringent EU standards in order to allow the company to move beyond New Zealand’s borders. The company, he says, has “worked very, very hard to avoid any complaint about food safety”. And yes, he says that with some pride.

Automation has been a priority and the plant can now produce 100,000 pies a day. “In manufacturing you’ve got to be able to bite the bullet and make the investment before you can rake the money back in,” says Grooten. “I feel that’s where most businesses fail to grow — being prepared to put your profits back in.”

Reining in the spiralling overheads associated with bolting growth has also required hard work. Although the plant now employs two full-time engineers, Grooten (an automotive engineer by trade) maintained and repaired all plant machinery himself until three years ago, a task that gobbled up weekends and evenings. This summer, Grooten enjoyed his first Christmas holiday in 24 years.

Along with hard grind, Grooten has tried to stay innovative. To pique pie eaters’ interest, the company develops a new flavour — available short term — every six to eight weeks. The company collaborates with Steve Barton, executive chef at the Ellerslie Convention Centre — a long-time Dad’s Pies customer — to come up with new flavour ideas. Barton, the company and BP then work together to refine the pies for optimum taste and suitability for mass production. Recent tempters have included Tuscan beef, turkey and cranberry, and venison and red wine pies.

Dad’s Pies’ relationship with BP began 18 years ago with a deal supplying pies to a single service station in Silverdale; today the company’s products are found in more than 260 BP stations nationwide. Andrew Howard, BP New Zealand trading manager, says being able to -collaborate openly and honestly has contributed to the relationship’s success. “We’re foodies as well — I’m a baker by trade — and those elements mean you’re able to work together to develop products and create consumer needs.”

Having created successful recipes that tempt Kiwi taste buds, the company now has offshore pie lovers in its sights. By 2009 Grooten estimates company sales of around $27 million, 30% of which will come from exports branded under the Dad’s Pies name. The company is currently working on a number of offshore deals, including one to supply a line of savouries with specific Japanese flavours to that market. It has partnered with export company Coastline NZ and this month will also take the proverbial coals to Newcastle and begin supplying pies to a chain of 2,000 British pubs.

There is big potential in the UK market for premium pies from “clean, green” New Zealand, which has been untouched by food safety scares such as mad cow disease, Grooten says. And the scale of the market is huge: if every New Zealand pie maker exported their products to the UK, he reckons they could satisfy only 5% of that market. “There are 56,000 pubs in the UK and if we could have just a small percentage of the market in London alone, that would be huge.”

It’s a new adventure for sure.