Carrs Pasties has been ever-present in the minds and stomach northwestern communities for 86 years. Bolton-born and bred, family business is stepping up expansion plans to meet rising U firmly sticking to its roots. Andy Probert discovered more from D and his management team.
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Bite into a Carrs pasty, and you know. It has been made with pride and passion, then lovingly infused with a dash of community. Getting a real taste of a company’s enduring love for its products is rare, but the commitment to quality at Carrs shines through every mouthful.
One of Bolton’s best-kept secrets has been slowly unwrapped to the country in recent years, and consumers cannot get enough. Its products appear in independent shops and garages nationally or delivered to doorsteps across the UK. The pasties are even, allegedly, crammed into suitcases as holidaymakers taking a trip to paradise can take a piece of Bolton with them.
“Pasties from Carrs are devoured around the planet, and customers keep coming back,” said Director Joe Carr. Alongside his brothers Liam and Matt, Mr Carr took over the business from their father, John, in 2013.
Quality and queues
Carrs Pasties began life in 1938 when Grandma Nell began baking pasties at the family home on Halliwell Road, Bolton. Anything left went on sale in the family shop. Word soon caught on, and local mill workers queued around the block for her meat and potato pasties.
Known locally as The Carrs Pasty, the meat & potato pasty remains a highly popular offering since becoming a core part of its tasty portfolio. Mr Carr said: “We deliberately keep our product range low as we focus on quality and ensure it remains consistently excellent.”
Bolton remains at the heart of operations for Carrs; its headquarters and retail locations are in the town. Carrs employs 140 people and has 210 UK-wide trade partners, such as family-owned and independent retail operators.
Food preparation is completed at its factory and depot site, before fresh and frozen products are shipped via its fleet of vans and food-trucks. Trade partners are encouraged to bake-off frozen products little and often, enabling products from Carrs to be regularly sold without fear of exhausting stock.
“Carrs historically drove off the back of catering, we deliver to functions across the town. That’s why it is so famous in Bolton.” Mr Carr added: “Now, we send pasties to any doorstep. It’s a pasty-by-post approach. Ex-Boltonians love the service, but we see great loyalty all across the UK.”
The popularity of Carrs is such that its production run makes the equivalent of two pasties for every Boltonian in the run-up to Christmas.
Ingredients for success
What is unique to Carrs is how it fills pasties, according to Mr Carr: “We fill our pasties hot. It is a difficult thing to do, especially at scale. All the ingredients, such as the meat and potatoes, are fresh on the day. We cook and blast-freeze the pasties within an hour, or they go into the oven.
“It doesn’t matter whether you are in our retail shop, at one of our trading partners’ locations, baking at home, or having food delivered for catering; all the quality is guaranteed. We lock in all the amazing flavours. Nobody else does that.”
The tasty pasty range – meat and potato, steak, cheese and jalapeno, and classic vegetable - is complemented by other delights from Carrs Pasties. These include sausage rolls and whist pies, which are well-seasoned minced beef in shortcrust pastry filled with pie jelly.
Carrs even partnered with Aardman Animations to launch a licensed pasty to mark the 30th anniversary of Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. The More Cheese, Ham & Chilli Jam Pasty comprises mature Cheddar, Mozzarella, Red Leicester and Wensleydale, with ham, caramelised onion and a sachet of tangy chilli dip.
“Our USP is that we don’t use cheap ingredients,” said John O’Brien, Head of Commercial. “We only use the best quality ingredients we’re proud to put in our pasties. For example, our steak meat is exceptionally low in fat.
“Everything we do revolves around care, attention and quality. We use shortcrust pastry for the meat and potato option and puff pastry for the steak pasty. In each
case, the pastry is thin and melts in your mouth.”
“People are shocked because our pasties are filled to the brim,” Mr Carr added. “A Carrs pasty contains 80 per cent high-quality filling as we want the flavour to shine through, while the pastry complements it.”
Primed for growth
Within the last 18 months, Carrs has opened its fourth retail shop in Bolton and invested £2 million in building a new bakery on the same site of its HQ, with ambitions to double production and achieve £15 million sales by 2026.
“We are transforming our production floor so there’s an efficient product flow, while furthering safety and quality standards,” said Head of Operations Gavin Astley. “We are also investing in solar energy and aim to be net zero by 2030.”
Ties to its suppliers go far beyond being another link in the supply chain. “Some of their parents used to supply our parents,” explained Mr Carr. “There’s a lot of heritage there. Our flour supplier is sixth generation, and our potato merchant understands our obsession with the right taste and quality.”
Wards (Produce) Ltd, Nelstrops Family Flour Millers, Bowland Foods, Procter’s Cheeses and Frimovel are among its loyal suppliers.
The underlying pillars at Carrs hark back to an earlier era: a passion for quality, exceptional delivery and service, and respect. “Everyone who works at Carrs has these values instilled into them,” said Mr Carr. “My dad’s approach was: ‘Make those pasties good, so good people will want to queue up for them.’ That is still embedded in the company. And we love feedback, as it takes the product to the next level.”
“We have products in the hospitality area of Liverpool FC and new trade customers
approach us continually,” continued Mr O’Brien. “We are in a position to fulfil ambitions, but we make a conscious effort to work with independent clients so we can thrive together commercially.”
Community spirit
While backing the Living Wage Foundation and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham’s Good Employment Charter, Carrs supports many local community efforts.
It is a major supporter of Rock It, a music collective inspiring the creative skills of secondary school children through music performance, production and creation. Carrs even created a special Rock It chilli beef pasty. “This symbolises what Carrs is all about: a quality product, excellent service and community to the core,”
Mr Carr explained.
“Carrs is not only a premium brand, but an affordable product,” he said, in conclu -
sion. “We remain part of customers’ diets – through good times and bad. Carrs is now at the tipping point of major growth, and that’s down to our people, who make us what we are today.
“Passion, place and pride is found in every staff member. What our customers, our true brand ambassadors, eat reflects the culture and collective obsession we’ve had for nearly nine decades in creating the perfect pasty.” n
