Worthing's Piglets Pantry: Sussex food producer supplies 25,000 pies a week to stadiums and businesses across the country

The Worthing-based food producer supplies its award-winning pies, sausage rolls and other bakes and cakes to sports stadiums across the UK, as well as to 265 businesses and an ever-growing base of customers who order products via the company’s website.

Started 11 years ago by Joanna Hunter, Piglets has gone from strength-to-strength, having taken on a headquarters four times the size of its previous one during lockdown.

A massive football fan, Joanna started Piglets in 2011 after going to a Brighton game at the Amex stadium and finding the food provision to be lacking. She suggested to the club that she could do better, produced some pies, and soon the orders were flooding in.

She now runs the firm with her partner, Steve Cusack. And it is a real family affair, as her son is the head chef, and Steve’s daughter Lara works in the marketing team.

The firm supplies The Oval cricket ground in London, as well as other football stadiums, rugby and horseracing grounds all from its base in Decoy Road, Worthing.

To give people a flavour of how their delicious offerings are produced, the team at Piglets invited me for a behind-the-scenes tour of their headquarters.

Head of production Tracy Mole showed me where the savoury bakes are produced, including the popular steak Harvey’s ale and mushroom pie and the famous sausage rolls. She said: “It takes nine people to make a pie in terms of making the mixes right through to to cooking. It’s a long, thought-out process which is where the artisan nature comes into our work. Wherever possible we hand-make everything, but we do use machinery where it’s needed because of the volume that we do. But it is important for us to get a hand-finished product.”

There are around 80 people on the ‘shop floor’ during high seasons, making upwards of 24,000 pies a week. Piglets uses local ingredients, where possible, and is seeing an increase in demand for vegan/plant-based offerings.

During lockdown, the company saw in explosion in its orders to customers’ homes, which includes delicious afternoon tea boxes as well as cupcakes and celebration cakes.

Tracy added: “Our motto is ‘for the love of food’, and we have a love of ingredients, too. It starts off with the basics and ends up with the huge range of products we produce for stadiums, businesses and homes.”

Over on the pastry side of the factory, staff were hard at work cutting and decorating blondies, boxing lamingtons and putting the finishing touches to some Christmas-themed carrot cakes and gingerbread cupcakes.

Everything smelled amazing, and it was amazing to see the care and precision taken to make sure each cake looked perfect.

In the boxing room, speedy staff got orders ready to be sent out on delivery – each product carefully placed into a pink box, before they’re chilled and shipped.

“We have a really good working relationship with our clients,” Tracy said. “We are chef-led, and very much work chef-to-chef. We speak the same language, which really helps us design whatever they need.

"We can pretty-much do anything our clients want, we never say no, and I think it’s one of our best qualities. We can make it happen!”

For more details about Piglets Pantry, see