Brian, Very interesting but I have some good news for you!! You can get your Walkers Pie again!! The shop has been reopened http://www.walkerspies.co.uk/index.php/news You also buy from some supermarkets..info on their site BTW I do not work for any Pork pie company Happy Christmas Regards Paul Taylor On 23/12/2013 8:57 AM, Brian Binns wrote: My recent posting on Christmas recipes has been expanded on the Leicestershire forum to a discussion on Pork Pies, and as the history of local producers concerns both Notts and Leics, I am posting this summary to both. In the early 1940s, Ken Parr, a recently qualified baker, took out a loan to set up his own pie shop in Nottingham. He developed a reputation founded on good baking, and developed the first "original" pork pie based on an old recipe, with signature dark and crispy pastry. He then bought another local pie shop, founded in 1931 which traded under the name Pork Farms, which he adopted for all shops after that. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_Farms#cite_note-1> In the mid-1960s, Parr's business was bought by food tycoon W. Garfield Weston who made Parr Chairman. In 1969, rival Nottingham pie company TN Parr, formerly owned by Parr’s uncle, but then by Samworth Brothers, bought out Pork Farms, again bringing together the two companies together under the Pork Farms brand. In 1971, the group was floated on the London Stock Exchange as Pork Farms Ltd. In 1978 the Samworth family sold Pork Farms to Northern Foods, later merged by Northern with both Palethorpes of Market Drayton and Bowyers of Trowbridge, Wiltshire to form Pork Farms Bowyers. Later the company sold the Bowyers and Palethorpes pork sausage business and brands to concentrate on baked meat products. Northern Foods transferred the production of Pork Pies from Nottingham, which they later came to regret. In 2007, the name of Melton Mowbray Pork Pies became protected and they had to be made within a defined distance of Melton Mowbray to qualify. The company then chose to close the Trowbridge plant and invest £12million into the Nottingham plant to bring back and increase Melton Mowbray Pork Pie production. In the meantime, the Samworth Family had started building another food “empire” starting with Ginsters Pasties in Cornwall and then expanding back into the East Midlands. They now own Dickinson and Morris, probably the iconic Melton Mowbray Pork Pie makers, and Henry Walker of Leicester, as well as producing Melton Mowbray Pork Pies for most of the major supermarkets in the UK. Henry Walker is an interesting company. Walker & Son was founded in Leicester 1824 by Mark Walker, who with his son opened a butchers shop on Leicester High Street, in the early days their sausages were a hit! But then they built a bakery and the famous Walkers pork pie was born! Leicester loved our pies so much that thousands of families would buy them every week, on Christmas Eve people would queue around the block just to purchase their Walkers pork pie, your Christmas dinner table was not complete without one and isn't to this day! During the meat rationing of World War II, Walker & Son, diversified the business and using the surplus fat of meat products and locally grown potato's they began producing potato crisps, they were the original creators of the famous snack brand. This side of the business then grew into Walker’s Crisps, once just a local Leicester company, but since being bought by American giant PepsiCo has expanded into the biggest UK crisp and snack manufacturer, and has expanded into Europe with the “Lay’s” brand. Although brought up in Nottingham on Pork Farms Pies, I have to declare that I actually prefer Walker’s Pies, though their retail shops closed years ago, and I haven’t bought one for years. Pork Farms shops also closed years ago, so this Christmas we have bought a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie from Sainsbury’s, which I believe will have been made by Walkers, as they are the biggest (only) supplier of own label Melton Pies. Pork Pie and Piccalilli on Boxing Day for me! With best wishes to all I have had the pleasure to correspond with on these forums over the past year. Brian Binns