Five friends from New Zealand are making pies and curing homesickness for expats in London at the same time with their business venture, Friday Pies.

Friday Pies was launched by the mates from New Zealand in January after sitting at a pub on a Friday (thus the name!), discussing the fact they couldn’t find a pie that rivalled New Zealand’s best.

One of the founding crew members Stephanie Armstrong told Hospitality Business NZ that they started out selling the pies to mates for a donation to charity just to test them out.

“We had some extra time on our hands so we dedicated ourselves to perfecting the national comfort food and taste of home that we missed the most,” she said.

“New Zealand makes the best pies in the world, hands down. We get so excited when someone says our pies took them right back to their favourite pie shop in New Zealand.”

The venture has been so successful that within five weeks they had scaled up from 60 pies a week to 280, with London bakery, Wild Goose, helping them out with pastry.

“The hospitality community over here in London is incredibly supportive and keen to share advice,” Stephanie said.

Every week the team make a limited batch of fresh, flaky, puff pastry pies—delivered on Friday sustainably via pushbike to London postcodes where Kiwi expats congregate, such as Clapham, Highbury and Islington (where the five mates share a flat).