Vale of Mowbray: Remembering a famous Yorkshire name after it collapses

“Succulent and tender, our pies are perfectly seasoned and encased in a hot water crust pastry and topped with a golden lid. With our fresh flavours, tasty ingredients we switch the traditional with the new and exciting to create simple, honest food, that warms your soul.”

Read more: Vale of Mowbray at Leeming Bar in North Yorkshire collapses with 200 jobs at risk

It would be hard for anyone’s taste buds not to get excited with that description – and it is those very pies made in the heart of North Yorkshire that food lovers have been snapping up for almost a century.

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From originally starting as a brewery in 1795 to baking pies since 1928, Vale of Mowbray have been producing tasty goods for more than 200 years – all from their family-owned bakery in Leeming Bar.

Read more: Vale of Mowbray LIVE: Leeming Bar pork pie firm goes into administration

It was Henry Plews that opened the brewery in the late 1700s, and the Rider brothers who ventured into pork pie production 96 years ago. The Gatenby family bought he bakery in 1995, and by the 2010s, more than 1.5 million pies were being made a week. A decade later, they claimed to have become Britain’s number one pork pie brand.

The company’s sad demise has been a speedy one. Only in May did bosses announce they were investing £4m in a new project, bringing new machinery, 30 new jobs and a new addition to their portfolio – scotch eggs.

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Launched in a twin pack format, with further sizes expected to follow, they were expected to increase the firm’s annual sales to £32m, with shoppers spending an extra £91.5million on the savoury pastry and meats category in just 12 months. They were quickly on the shelves in supermarket giant Morrison’s Their new machinery included the largest fryer in the UK, achieving a unique process which bosses said would keep the meat moist and the crumb crispier. It could be used to make 500 scotch eggs per minute.

Read more: More than a million pies every week - and now scotch eggs

And it was only 12 months ago that the company was recruiting 65 staff to help produce a new target of 80 million pies every year.

Managing director Mark Gatenby introduced a four-day working week to give ‘the best possible work life balance’, including spending more time with their families and enjoying leisure time. . He also announced an enhanced rate of pay across the board, taking it to £10 per hour which is above both National Minimum and National Living Wage.

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Speaking last September, he said: “We’ve seen significant growth over the last 12 months, and this has necessitated growing our team, but more than that we’ve made changes to the way we work to ensure that all of our people have the best possible work life balance.”

There have been tougher times in the past. In 2002, more than 120 firefighters spent almost 12 hours tackling a huge blaze at the factory after a gas explosion ripped through part of the building. The building became engulfed in flames and extra firefighters were called in from across the county to help tackle the emergency.

Read more: Fire at factory sees thousands of pork pies ruined

The fire was believed to be the biggest in the county since 1996, when an explosion at Northern LPG Supplies, in nearby Aiskew, took crews hours to contain. North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service compared it with the 1984 York Minster fire.

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The company has always been proud that it did not lay off any workers after the fire, even though it lost production capacity for two special Christmas pie lines, and a new factory rose from the ashes of the old one in November 2003 on the same site in Leases Road.

Today, however, with bills rocketing and other costs soaring, Vale of Mowbray, like many other businesses across the country, could well have come across a challenge too great that even a nation of pork pie lovers can’t help them overcome.