| Type | Privately held company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Food retail |
| Founded | London, England, UK (2001) |
| Founder(s) | Martin Dewey |
| Headquarters | London Borough of Hackney, UK |
| Products | Pies |
| Website | Square Pie |
Square Pie is a British food retail chain based in Hackney, east London, which specialises in handmade pies. It was founded in 2001 by Martin Dewey,[1] with the first outlet, "The Square Pie Company", being opened in Spitalfields Market in November of that year.[2] After the success of this shop, and expanding sales by supplying London venues such as The Social and The Lock Tavern and running a stall at Glastonbury, Square Pie opened a concession in Selfridges food hall in London in 2003.[3] A third outlet was opened at Canary Wharf in June 2004[4] to be followed by sites at The Brunswick Centre in Russell Square, Heathrow Terminal 1, Lord's Cricket Ground and Twickenham.[5]
In 2007, Sainsbury's launched a Square Pie range across 71 of its stores.[5] As with those produced for Square Pies' outlets, the pies in this "Take Me Home and Bake Me" range are handmade, using only natural ingredients,[6] with "clean and simple" packaging designed to reflect Square Pie's image as an "honest British food brand" – Square Pie outlets similarly use brown-board boxes as food containers.[7]
Among the over 116 different types of pies the company made between 2001 and 2006,[8] Square Pie has produced tie-ins to sports championships, making a "humble pie" – kangaroo meat, red onion, field mushroom and Merlot – to mark Australia's loss at the 2003 Rugby World Cup,[9] and running a "Pie World Cup" during the 2006 FIFA World Cup[10] (won by the Senegalese Chicken Yasser). It also launched a pie branded with the London 2012 logo in 2004, in support of London's (successful) bid to host the Olympic Games in 2012.[11]