Moving Pies Up Market

Moving Pies Up Market

A national Business-Health partnership has been established to improve the nutrition profile of one of Kiwis' favourite treat foods: pies.

The group is comprised of baking industry representatives, including the Baking Industry Association of New Zealand (BIANZ), ingredient suppliers and pie manufacturers, the Food Industry Group, the NZ Heart Foundation, Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) and the Ministry of Health.

The Pie Group has set itself a mandate to put in place best practice in pie-making that could reduce the fat in pies, and subsequently have positive health impacts at the population health level.

Pie Group co-founder and BIANZ President, Simon Bennett explains, "The idea was based on the Chip Group that recently formed in NZ. Their goal was to set guidelines for making hot chips that could reduce the fat by up to twenty percent."

"In an age where obesity is on everyone's radar government, parents, individuals, the health sector - we think it makes sense for business to work together with health organisations to lead positive changes. Our intention is for the Pie Group to become a model business-health partnership and to collectively improve the nutrition profile of a favourite Kiwi food."

Kai Hong Tan, Nutritionist with ARPHS says the Chip Group model is a good one to follow, owing to its partnership approach, and potential for positive public health outcomes.

"It is well documented that small changes to reduce the energy content of high volume, high energy foods, of which pies are one, can have an impact at a population level. The 'Chip Group', where industry and health representatives have worked together to set best practice processes for cooking hot potato chips, provides an effective template for the Pie Group to follow," said Tan.

Analysis of pies conducted by AgriQuality for the Healthy Kai Programme, in which the Heart Foundation and ARPHS are partners (along with local primary health care providers), showed an 860kJ difference between the highest and lowest energy pies (steak & cheese pies - the most popular type), which highlighted that there is the potential for improvement in pie making processes in some bakeries.

"The promulgation of the 'golf ball of fat per pie' myth doesn't reflect reality. There is a wide range of fat content from pie to pie, and some bakeries have been very proactive in lowering the fat content. Now it is time for us to promote industry-wide best practice, resulting in a better nutrition profile overall, and increased availability of some lower fat varieties," says Bennett.

Eddie Grooten of Dad's Pies says the Pie Group will develop a specification for a healthier pie.

"We plan to create a recommended set of criteria for the energy, total fat, saturated fat and trans fat, and sodium levels, which we will set based on a targeted percentage decrease in the average energy and fat content of NZ pies," said Grooten.

Once the specifications are established, the message will be taken out to bakeries.

Andrea Bidois of the Heart Foundation says that industry representatives are the best deliverer of training messages when they visit vendors.

"The role of the Heart Foundation for the Pie Group will be to provide information and an evidence base for the group to use. We will develop key messages around improving the pie nutrition profile, and then have industry representatives take the message out to the bakers." said Bidois.

-ends-

© Scoop Media