While the weather was cooling down, business was heating up for Blue Mac Bakehouse the pie makers in Queensland.

Emerald’s Fairbairn Bakery, Clermont’s Blue Mac Bakehouse and the Gemfields’ Scrub Blush Café are three of the state’s regional businesses that pumped out more pies this winter than ever before – and the cold snap isn’t over yet.

Fairbairn Bakery owner Kelly Sellar said its pastry chefs, Lex Freeman and Jay Bull, were making an extra 1000 pies a week.

“We’re doing around 5800 pies a week, 1320 sausage rolls and 150 pasties,” she told Central Queensland News, adding the shop still sells out most days.

Blue Mac Bakehouse owner Jodie Macfarlane said the travelling grey nomad population is a big reason business is booming, with the cold weather bringing them off the road.

“On average we are selling 14 dozen pies a day and selling close on five dozen sausage rolls. We’re most probably up by about five dozen on pies and two dozen sausage rolls to normal,” she said.

Leanne Tranberg from the Scrub Blush Café said while the tourists were on their winter pilgrimage, her pastry chef was working overtime to keep the menu fresh and exciting.

“What he makes depends on what he feels like doing on the day. It could be chilli cheese, plain old mince, or it could be rib fillet. The rib fillet one is with braised onion; it’s popular,” she said, not that she’s complaining.

“This is more or less our first month in two years that it (business) has been reasonably good,” Jodie added

“It’s a great time of year to be a pie maker”.