New Zealander Goes for Slice of Aussie Pie : Maker of Meat Pies Hopes to Cash In on Down Under Craze

As Paul Hogan, the ubiquitous leader of Australia’s assault on America’s consciousness and pocketbook, continues to beckon us to the antipodes, another foot soldier has joined the commercial invasion from Down Under.

Sonny Davis believes that now is the time to market a Down Under delicacy of his own to the American public, New Zealand-style meat pies.

Davis, a native of the island-nation that lies about 1,000 miles off Australia’s southeastern coast, sees the Aussie craze, initiated two years ago by Hogan’s commercials for the Australian Tourist Commission, as a way of promoting his new meat-pie business, Sonny’s Savory Pies.

After receiving U.S. Department of Agriculture approval about two months ago to sell the chicken and beef pies--Australia’s and New Zealand’s answer to the American hamburger--Davis said he plans to market his product to supermarkets and convenience stores as “the pie of wonder from Down Under.”

He spent $600,000 building his pie-baking plant in Anaheim and is busy almost daily selling his product to convenience stores and independent distributors who, in turn, market the pies to supermarket chains.

Heavy Marketing Is Key

But even with the Aussie invasion interesting Americans in everything Australian from khaki fashions to stuffed koalas, those already in the business of merchandising goods from Australasia--Australia, New Zealand and nearby islands--say heavy marketing is the key to riding the coattails of established personalities like Hogan and singer Olivia Newton-John.

“It’s hard to get the word out,” said Barbara Nelson, half-owner of the Tru-Roo Australian gift shop in Costa Mesa.

The new interest in Australia prompted Nelson and her brother, who lives in Australia and buys the store’s goods there, to open the shop about a year ago, she said.

Though pleased with the shop’s business over the past year, Nelson said it is difficult to attract customers because her store is not nearly as well known as the Koala Blue string of souvenir shops owned in part by Newton-John.

Nelson agrees, though, that Hogan’s movie and commercial spots, and the America’s Cup yacht races in Australia, have “made people all the more aware and more concerned with Australia.” And, she might have added, with New Zealand, which appears to stand a good chance of taking the America’s Cup away from Australia.

America’s interest in the world’s southern hemisphere, however, may not be enough to win Davis’ meat pies the precious shelf space in the supermarkets that the company needs to survive, industry analysts warn.

“It’s tough enough to get a product on the supermarket shelf and keep it there. You just have to believe it’s going to be an uphill battle. I don’t know that the hype surrounding the ‘Crocodile Dundee’ thing is going to be enough to do it,” said Craig Carber, an analyst for the investment firm of Dain, Bosworth Inc.

‘Formidable Task’

“He (Davis) has got a formidable task,” said Marvin B. Roffman, food industry analyst for Janny Montgomery Scott Inc. “He’s going to have to be like a ‘Crocodile Dundee’ to be half-successful.”

Davis, a former automobile body shop owner who cashed in the 8-year-old business to start the meat-pie operation, said that after spending more than $600,000 to get his factory set up, advertising money is non-existent. He said he hopes to spotlight his product by passing out samples in markets, where the individually wrapped pies are sold for about $1.50 each. He and his crew of five--all New Zealanders--are producing about 2,500 pies a week in a bakery equipped to turn out as many as 5,000 pies a day, he said.

Davis said he hopes to get the pies accepted as an alternative to traditional American fast foods. “You Americans eat hamburgers, but this is more nutritional than a hamburger” because the meat pies contain less fat than hamburger patties, Davis said.

Still, Elaine Bermingham, founder of the Australia Kangaroo Club, a 6,000-member group of Aussie lovers based in Irvine, said she thinks that getting the meat pies to sell won’t be easy. “It’s very hard to get Americans to eat what Australians like to eat,” said the Australian native.

Never Caught On

Bermingham recalled one acquaintance who, in the late 1970s, tried to introduce Americans to Pavlova--an Australian dessert named for a Russian ballerina--but the fruity meringue dish never caught on.

Then, a few years later, Bermingham said, another of her friends in Costa Mesa attempted to sell vegemite, a spread as popular with Aussie schoolchildren as peanut butter is to American youngsters. But Californians “didn’t acquire a taste for it,” she said, and the shop owner shut down.

“If he (Davis) wants to introduce meat pies, he better bring his marketing tools with him,” Bermingham said. “It does take a lot of marketing know-how.”

Gay Patterson, who operated an Australian restaurant in Laguna Beach but has since moved her business--Aussie Eats--to San Diego’s fashionable Horton Plaza, agreed that the meat pie “could really catch on--but it needs a tremendous amount of marketing.”

Another of Davis’ marketing plans--once the pies start selling--would use Southern California’s cultural diversity, and international appetite, to popularize the meat pies. Davis said he would like to spice the pies to an Italian, Latin or Chinese flavor. “We can meet (the tastes) of all ethnic groups just by adding the flavor. The pastry is universal,” he said.