Iconic Aussie meat pie gets into crust of Pizza Hut
Pizza and pie is not a usual match but Pizza Hut and Four’N Twenty are coming together to give it a shot.
Announced by Pizza Hut yesterday, the iconic Australian Four’N Twenty pie will be featuring as part of a pizza called the ‘Four ‘N Twenty Stuffed Crust’.
The pizza includes a mini Four ‘N Twenty meat pie on the crust of each slice. The rest of the pizza contains meat such as pepperoni, ham and bacon. The pizza also comes with two tomato sauce sachets for the pies.
“Four’N Twenty Pie Bites are supplied whole by Four’N Twenty,” said Fatima Syed, Head of marketing and Innovation at Pizza Hut.
She also told Australian Food News that the ‘Pie Bites’ are a new product for ‘Four’N Twenty and that Pizza Hut wanted to use them because they were considered the perfect size.
“Using our fresh base, Pizza Hut staff stretch out the dough beyond the usual 11 inches and fold the dough around the eight Four’N Twenty Pie Bite,” Syed said about how the pizza is made.
“From here we add the desired toppings.”
The ‘Four‘N Twenty Stuffed Crust’ follows on from a previous collaboration between Pizza Hut and Doritos. Their partnership resulted in Dorito corn chips being placed on top of a cheese-filled crust.
Pizza Hut has also created their own limited-edition unique crusts in the past including a cheeseburger crust and hot dog stuffed crust.
The company says it has released the Pizza as part of marketing efforts to co-incide with the start of State of Origin NRL competition between Queensland and New South Wales. The ‘Four’N Twenty Stuffed Crust’will only be available for a unspecified limited time.
Pizza Hut is owned by Yum! Brands, an American company who also own other fast food chains such as KFC and Taco Bell.
Four‘N Twenty pies is owned by Patties Foods, an Australian company which also owns frozen food brands including Herbert Adams, Creative Gourmet and Nanna’s.
Patties Foods was established in 2006 after Four’N Twenty, Nanna’s and Herbert Adams were all brought by the same investors.
Four ‘N Twenty pies originally established in Bendigo, Victoria in 1947.
The pizza follows a recent venture by Britain’s Cadbury chocolate who also tried to localise their product for the Australian market by introducing vegemite flavoured chocolate. McDonald’s has also been picked up for pushing localisation lately, embracing Australia’s trendy cafe culture with fries currently available in fashionable wire baskets and burgers served on wooden boards.
All moves to give foreign products an Australian twist have not been successful however. In 2008 Subway was not allowed to sell ‘ANZAC Cookies’ as the Department of Veteran Affairs said calling ANZAC biscuits cookies gave “non-Australian overtones’’. They were also not allowed to sell the cookies as the department said the recipe strayed too far from the original idea of an ANZAC biscuit.
