In Praise of the Overdressed Pie Awards
Somewhere between the A&P show and the annual fun run sits the most underrated marketing masterclass in Aotearoa, the regional pie awards. Not the big national one with a slick trophy and a sponsor wall. I mean the hyper-local, fiercely fought, slightly flour-dusted competitions held in community halls from Oamaru to Ōpōtiki. The kind where the judging table wobbles and the MC owns three blazers in increasingly bold checks.
Last weekend I found myself at the Coastal Crimp-Off, hosted by a bakery collective calling itself The Golden Flake Guild. No multinational backing. No celebrity chef parachuted in. Just 47 pies, each presented like a tiny campaign launch. Handwritten flavour manifestos. Custom wax seals. One entrant had created a backstory for their steak and blue cheese number involving a fictional shepherd named Clive who apparently “believed in second chances and slow braises”. It was ridiculous. It was brilliant.
Here’s what fascinated me. Every bakery there understood positioning better than half the agencies in Auckland. One leaned hard into provenance, mapping the exact paddock their beef came from. Another targeted tradies with a pie called Smoko Fuel, complete with a loyalty card stamped like a time sheet. A newcomer went full theatre, unveiling their pie under a silver cloche as if it were a luxury watch. They weren’t selling pastry. They were selling identity, tribe, bragging rights for the drive home.
In 2026, when everyone is chasing scale, these bakers are doubling down on intimacy. They know their judges by name. They know which local paper will run a photo. They know that winning means a queue out the door on Monday and a story that gets retold all winter. It’s scrappy, joyful marketing. No jargon. No inflated decks. Just a deep understanding of audience and a willingness to overthink crimping patterns like it’s Olympic sport. Frankly, we could all learn something from a room full of people arguing passionately about gravy consistency.
Last weekend I found myself at the Coastal Crimp-Off, hosted by a bakery collective calling itself The Golden Flake Guild. No multinational backing. No celebrity chef parachuted in. Just 47 pies, each presented like a tiny campaign launch. Handwritten flavour manifestos. Custom wax seals. One entrant had created a backstory for their steak and blue cheese number involving a fictional shepherd named Clive who apparently “believed in second chances and slow braises”. It was ridiculous. It was brilliant.
Here’s what fascinated me. Every bakery there understood positioning better than half the agencies in Auckland. One leaned hard into provenance, mapping the exact paddock their beef came from. Another targeted tradies with a pie called Smoko Fuel, complete with a loyalty card stamped like a time sheet. A newcomer went full theatre, unveiling their pie under a silver cloche as if it were a luxury watch. They weren’t selling pastry. They were selling identity, tribe, bragging rights for the drive home.
In 2026, when everyone is chasing scale, these bakers are doubling down on intimacy. They know their judges by name. They know which local paper will run a photo. They know that winning means a queue out the door on Monday and a story that gets retold all winter. It’s scrappy, joyful marketing. No jargon. No inflated decks. Just a deep understanding of audience and a willingness to overthink crimping patterns like it’s Olympic sport. Frankly, we could all learn something from a room full of people arguing passionately about gravy consistency.