The Govan store was instrumental in introducing beef olives that are now made with
four different fillings – traditional sausagemeat, black pudding, haggis and an oatmeal
filling for the Aberdeenshire consumers.
It was ASDA Kirkcaldy that first asked for steak pies and it wasn’t long before Malcolm
Allan’s pie was making an impact in the streets of Raith.
Gordon claims that the success of his product is due to replicating how any butcher
would make the products in his own shop. They still make sausage batches at a
maximum size of 100lb., all the beef for the beef olives is sliced on two hand powered
slicers and every steak pie is weighed, filled and lidded individually.
“We set up a 700g steak pie but with the best will in the world that wouldn’t serve
four. You couldn’t buy that in a supermarket in Scotland. Then they wanted Scotch
Beef in it and they wanted puff pastry on it. ASDA were concerned that they couldn’t
get the price I needed for a kilo pie but I said ‘lets find out’. But we then had the only
pie that could sell at a premium price.”
When pushed to drop his price and make a Steak and Sausage pie, Gordon introduced
the Sausage Pie maintaining that the product has got to be good and quality
maintained.
“You are better walking away and to stop making it when it is still a good product
because somebody else will buy it. It is my Dad’s name that is on it so you have got
to make a good product.”
There were plenty more wanting
the Malcolm Allan products on
their shelves.
Somerfields,
Sainsburys, Tesco, Co-op, CJ
Lang (Spar), Waitrose and
David Sands followed. Now the
business employs 120 people in
the four purpose designed units
over 25,000 square feet that
include a licensed cutting plant
in Bonnybridge and a stand
alone
bakery,
an
EFSIS
approved
meat
product
manufacturing unit and packing
depot at Tamfourhill in Falkirk.
Gordon (left) looks after the
sales and his older brother
James
does
the
sourcing.
James’ son Ross and daughter
Laura are now in the business
and Gordon’s son Stewart has
also come on board. There is a
technical manager and the
running of the business is down
to 12 key employees all of
whom have come along on the
rollercoaster
ride
that
has
rocketed
Malcolm
Allan
to
national recognition.
“You have got to be able to meet the demands. At Christmas and New Year with
snow everywhere we supplied all our customers fully. A lot of that is down to the staff
but that is the biggest thing – quality and availability.
“If you haven’t been making a good product, not achieving 100% availability, not
been pounding round the stores doing sampling you are not going to sell the product.”
Capacity is something Malcolm Allan has created so that no business needs to be
turned away. In the four days up to New Year they turned out 64,000 steak pies.
Every week 200,000 slices of Sliced Sausage are made and packed. Mind blowing
numbers by most standards!
Their mission statement is like
any butcher’s – never sell
anything that you wouldn’t want
to eat yourself.
That has
certainly taken Malcolm Allan’s
far. With such an impressive
customer list Gordon and James
are really doing the business
and have certainly earned the
approval of their father, but
even he would admit it’s down
to much more than a name.