How is it Possible That Every Bakery in Australia Has Won a Pie Award?

Travel to any bakery in Australia in 2018 and you’ll see every single goddamn one of them has won an award. You’ll see the words “award winning pies” written across every window, sign, and sticker on the door, without any further info about how they won, when they won, or which pie did the winning. And then if you start asking questions, you’ll just get some strange sideways answer like yes we won, would you like to buy a pie?

Now, I know this is hard to talk about because everyone loves pies and bakeries—and no one wants Australia’s bakeries to receive any less awards—but we have to admit that something smells fishy. Because how can all bakeries be winners? And is it possible they’re just making up their own awards? And seriously, what is stopping them from doing that?

To find out, I made up a pie award.

To make up a pie award you need trophies. I found these guys (above) on Gumtree and although they’re not pie trophies, they are trophies. I think that silver one is for poker.

The next thing you need is stickers. I asked the art department to make these and now I have 100 of them and the Best Pie Ever competition is officially a thing.

And then I dressed up like some kind of pie maestro to go present awards and ask some tough questions at bakeries.

This is Steph. Steph works part time at Boscastle Pies in Brunswick and she was mildly pleased to win Best Pie Ever in 2018. “I’ve never won anything before,” she beamed, and I reminded her it was for the bakery.

Another woman, who must have heard all the excitement, came downstairs and explained that Boscastle actually had a whole shelf of awards upstairs. “The managers are very dedicated to entering all the competitions,” she told me.

I asked them if pie awards were real, or if Boscastle was just making them up. But both Steph and the other woman insisted that pie competitions were absolutely real and so were the awards. At that point I admitted that my pie comp was 100 percent fake, but they didn’t seem to mind. “Winning is winning,” said Steph.

This is Kate. Kate was thrilled to see Swan Street Bakery And Patisserie win Best Pie Ever 2018, and she didn’t think it was a problem that I’d just made it up. She also said that she didn’t bother with pie competitions because she thought making pies was a better use of their time.

“Yeah, I get all the email for the pie competitions,” she said. “We don’t feel the need to enter. We’re just happy making the best pies we can.”

As Kate put the sticker on the window, I asked why she thought all bakeries claim to have won awards. “I think there’s just so many pie competitions,” she said. “Maybe it’s just not that hard to win.”

Turns out Kate was right. A quick Google lists lists two major Australian pie competitions, each handing out gold, silver, and bronze in about seven categories. The Official Great Aussie Pie Competition has been running since 1989, while Australia’s Best Pie Competition has been around since 2012. And at a rough estimate—if you add together all the prizes in all the categories, multiplied by all the years—these comps have handed out a total of 714 awards, which doesn’t even include all the smaller state-based competitions, of which there are dozens. So this probably explains why so many bakeries have won awards.

I decided I’d need to take this up with a pie judge.

This is Brendan Carter and he’s been a pie judge for 21 years. He started out as a baker, then took up teaching baking, and then he was asked to judge for the Great Aussie Pie Comp and became a teacher/judge. I visited him at home in Ballarat to ask the question: why do so many bakeries claim to have won awards?

“Well, it’s like you say, pie competitions have been around a long time and bakeries like to advertise their awards. It doesn’t matter if they’ve won gold or bronze, they’ll put it up in their window. And why wouldn’t they?”

Brendan showed me his backyard pie oven and talked about pies in a way that inspired saliva. He told me that bakeries don’t make up their own awards (“they’d have to be pretty desperate”) and that winning gold is really hard.

He said that in every gourmet pie category—be that chunky, chicken, vegetarian, game, or seafood—there are 17 aspects to judge. This includes how it looks to the eye and how it feels in the mouth. Whether it’s light and flaky on top, and whether it’s structurally sound on the bottom. Then he talked about fillings—choice cuts, peppercorns, rosemary, mushrooms, and red wine. “And all the elements have to come together perfectly,” he says. “And that’s no easy task.”

He then explained that an award winning pie has to be available in the winning bakery pie warmer for three months after competition. “We don’t want their special one-off pies. We want to award the pies that are available to everyone, to really showcase the industry.” To make sure, they send people out to check up on winning bakeries.

Finally, I asked Brendan to nominate his favorite pie ever, but he couldn’t remember. “Lately I’ve been enjoying chicken, cranberry, and brie. I just think that’s a great combination.”

And then I left to go eat a pie.

Hey, if you think your bakery deserves to win Best Pie Ever 2018, hit up Julian on Twitter or Instagram! You’ll be surprised by how easy it is to win.