Open Letter to Sainsbury's on Pies

Unfortunately it appears Sainsbury's are mis-labelling a tart as a pie on their "Homemade" website.

DROP EVERYTHING! Breakfast pies exist and we've got a recipe right here. #LifeMade https://t.co/zoTDft6UcG pic.twitter.com/WDcK9cpzjL

— Sainsbury's (@sainsburys) April 20, 2016

Despite the recipe on the website even saying "score a border into each tart roughly 2mm deep" they STILL have called this pastry product a "breakfast pie" - despite the fact that there is no "filling", because you can see all of the food items layered on top of the pastry rectangle! And don't even get me started on the lack of lid! Cue the...

Open letter to Sainsbury's

I have to admit it takes a lot to shock us aboard the Pierate Ship these days. Pies - our passion and dedication for over six and a half years now - have a tough press. People often mis-label many things as pies - the shepherds pie (which should be a shepherds potato bake), pumpkin pie (which is really a tart), even whole pizzas are called pies in America!

And yet in all my days of pie rating for the web's leading pie reviewing website (www.pierate.co.uk) - which it might be worth pointing out is the number one hit when you Google "Sainsbury's pie review" - and in fact in the 23+ years beforehand growing up, I have NEVER... EVER... seen a full English breakfast on top of a piece of pastry called a pie!

The offending Sainsbury's Breakfast Tart

May I just take this opportunity to remind you that we run www.pierate.co.uk and not "ratemytart" or any such thing. We have a readership of over 12,000 readers a month at present and have almost reached 500,000 views, and they want to read our PIE reviews, not tart reviews. And when they visit your "homemade" website for recipe ideas, they don't want to get all excited reading about a breakfast pie, only to find out it actually is a tart after all. Sure, to some of your customers the mis-labelling of a tart as a pie won't even generate the batting of an eyelid. And many people will see the photo on the website and just laugh at how Sainsbury's don't even appear to know what a pie is!!! But I am sure you will understand that we want to promote pies as much as we can and a tart is NOT a pie!!!

To help you out here, our Pierate Pie Dictionary clearly states what a true pie actually is:- filling fully encased in pastry with clearly defined base, sides and lid. A tart does not meet these stringent criteria and I'm shocked that in the recipe itself you even refer to it being a tart, only to later call the product a pie!!! Even the British Pie Awards - who have a far more liberal definition of a pie than us and even let a blooming pasty win their top award in 2016(?!) - would not consider a tart to be a pie!

As I bring this letter to a conclusion, I hope this has been useful to explain the issues surrounding the mis-labelling of food (we only need to mention "Horsemeat" from a few years ago to kick that off again) and will lead to a correction on your website to avoid future dissapointment/outrage. I am happy to speak to you further if you wish to - just email pierateship@yahoo.co.uk to arrange this.

Yours in pie,

Pierateer RAS

You'll be pleased to know that we would never rate a tart on our website - and that there are in fact very highly rated actual proper fully encased "Full English Breakfast" Pies available from producers such as:

Simple Simon's Perfect Pies - 6.07/7
Dee's Pies - 5.79/7
The Real Pie Company - Eaten and to be rated shortly and available in their range soon!
MyPie London - Still to get our hands on one of these but previous MyPie's have been awesome!

It therefore begs the question why would you call a tart a pie, unless you are just trying to get the pie-blicity by jumping on the pie bandwagon?! We, for one, aren't impressed.

In fact, we're pie-irate!

RAS