BRITAIN’S largest family have finally opened their new pie bakery unit for The Radford's Pie Company – but the experience hasn’t always been smooth.
Morecambe’s Noel and Sue unveiled the bakery’s new unit back in July, giving their followers a glimpse inside – but it needed a lot of work.
Speaking in a YouTube video posted earlier this week, Noel took viewers on a tour of the newly opened unit and spoke about the mishaps the family have had on the way.
- READ MORE: The Radford family’s pie business wins British Pie Award
In the video, Noel said: “We are finally in our new bakery. It’s been a long time coming.
“It’s taken us ever so long to get inside of here up and running."
Speaking about their first day in the unit, Noel added: “We did have one major disaster this morning. Myself and the boys brought the equipment over this morning and in the back of the van the mixer fell over.
“We plugged it in this morning to use and it didn’t start.”
However, the issue was soon resolved when the family uncovered the root of the problem.
Noel explained: “Took the lid off and the little connector had come undone- happy days, we were back up and running.”
In an earlier video, the family complained that they also added that the final construction date of the factory has to be delayed due to delivery shortages "due to Brexit".
While the pristine-looking unit looks near to completion, Noel added that they are still waiting on some items to be delivered - specifically pie dies and cardboard boxes.
The 50-year-old explained: “We’re still waiting on the die set for [a machine] – they’ve been on order now for 16 weeks it has taken that long to get stuff.
“As like most businesses at the minute, it’s difficult getting hold of things.
“Delivery boxes are the other thing [that have been difficult to get hold of].”
Supply shortages aside, the bakery has already been put to good use and in the tour video we can see pies in the oven as well as expensive-looking equipment in the unit.
Noel showed us a sealer, explaining: “Before the pies go out they are individually wrapped and then boxed up and sent on their way.”
Next, the dad-of-22, showed us the cool room where layers of pies are stacked on top of one another.
After this, Noel showed viewers the bratt pan where most of the pie’s fillings are cooked.
Noel said: “You can fit enough steak in there to make about 240 pies and that takes about 2 hours to cook.
“It’s on until we come in in the morning pretty much an hour or so before we’re going home.”
The business has also invested in a op-of-the-range pie blocker which is an upgrade from their hand-held device which only allows the business to make one pie shell at a time.
In a demonstration of the device, Noel explained: “You put your pie foil in with a lump of pastry and it will then move… and squash the pie shell.
“It takes around 15 minutes and that will do around 300 pie [shells]”
“We’re very luck as we have two which means we can up production.”
Noel then moved on to show viewers his “new toy” – a pastry machine which rolls the pastry to the baker’s desired thickness.
The previous device was described as an “antique” and a “pain”.
Noel said: “This is a new machine we have invested in which has come from Germany.
“That took about five weeks to arrive which is pretty good actually.
“It arrived on the Friday and we opened the following Monday which couldn’t have been timed any better.
“I won’t tell you what thickness we do our pastry as that’s our secret.”
According to the company’s website, this device retails for a whopping £6286.
Watch the full bakery tour on the Radford family’s YouTube channel.
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