A love affair with football has helped ensure the pie market in Australia is still growing despite the health and wellness trend.
The number of Australian consumers who admit to eating pies and pasties has grown from 8.1 million (42.6% of the population) to almost 9.4 million (47.5%) since 2013 according to fresh research from Roy Morgan Research.
The researcher found that pie consumers were more likely to live in rural areas than capital cities: 51 per cent of country-dwellers were partial to pies/pasties compared with 45.6 per cent of city dwellers.
South Australia was the most popular state for pie-eating, with 52.8 per cent of its residents consuming the pastry snack.
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), October 2015-September 2016
In terms of gender, men comprised 57.4 per cent of pie eaters and women the remaining 42.6 per cent.
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), October 2015-September 2016.
As for the football-pie connection, an above-average proportion of AFL supporters (56.4%) like eating pies/pasties, with financial members of AFL clubs (59.0%) and supporters who attend matches (59.8%) even more partial to them.
Four’n Twenty currently sponsors AFL teams Brisbane Lions, Fremantle Dockers and Port Adelaide Power.
Similar proportions of general NRL supporters (55.5%) and financial members of NRL clubs (55.4%) are pie fans, while supporters who attend matches (56.3%) are slightly more likely to like eating them.
Four’n Twenty also partners with the Brisbane Broncos and Cronulla Sharks.
Meanwhile, 58.5 per cent of A-League supporters like pies/pasties, a higher proportion than either AFL or NRL supporters.
However, none of the League’s 10 teams have a pie-related sponsor.
In contrast to the other two codes, pies are more popular with A-League supporters who watch matches on TV (56.7%) than attend matches (54.4%) or are paid-up members of an A-League club (52.4%).
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Aust), October 2015-September 2016, n=14,416. Base: Australians 14+
