Inside the secret to the success of Tippin’s pies

Tippin’s Gourmet Pies president Mark Boyer wants a Tippin’s pumpkin pie on every Kansas City dinner table this Thanksgiving.

He’ll come closer to fulfilling that wish than ever before.

The Kansas City, Kan.-based pie plant is set to roll out nearly 600,000 pies this season — July through November — more pies for the season than any time in its nearly four decades of operations.

“Consistency is the key. If we are not consistent we are not going to be successful,” said Boyer, who joined the company in 2013. “We don’t skimp on the ingredients. It’s a lot of handcrafting with the bakers and team members taking a great deal of pride in what they do and doing it the way we have always done it. Because it works.”

On Wednesday, the plant was abuzz as one line prepared apple pies that were quickly frozen and packaged for shipment. Cherry pie filling bubbled in one large vat next to another with vanilla cream filling (the base for coconut, chocolate, banana and lemon cream pies).

Workers readied graham cracker shells for key lime pie, and in the back “oven room,” employees pumped pumpkin filling into pie crusts. They set a timer as a reminder but typically their trained eye can tell when the pies are done with just a glance at their browned tops.

In the southern part of the plant, employees were lined up on both sides of a conveyor belt — in the Tippin’s “uniform” of white jacket, hairnet, blue gloves and slip-resistant rubber overshoes — as they made swirly crisscross patterns on the top of French silk pies using large pastry bags filled with whipped cream. Nearby a worker hand-shaved large chocolate bars to sprinkle on top.

Apple is Tippin’s most popular fruit pie, but pumpkin and French silk are the top sellers. About 90 percent of pumpkin pie sales take place in November and December.

Tippin’s got its start as a restaurant company when it was founded in 1979 by three partners, two former Pillsbury Co. veterans. Originally called Pippin’s, after the popular pie apple and a popular 1970s Broadway hit, it changed its name after a West Coast restaurant chain laid claim to the moniker. They expected to do $1 million in first-year sales but reached nearly $2.8 million, with pies accounting for 40 percent of the volume.

At its peak, Tippin’s had 18 restaurants in four states, racking up about $40 million in sales, according to Kansas City Star archives. But by 2003 the Overland Park-based chain sought Chapter 11 protection from creditors, shuttering nine unprofitable restaurants in the metro area, St. Louis and Texas. The next year it closed its four remaining Tippin’s restaurants. The owners blamed a difficult economic environment, intense competition from large national chains, an inability to advertise effectively and a low-carb diet craze.

But all the while, the wholesale business was growing.

Four B Corp. purchased the 30,000-square-foot pie plant, at 5350 Speaker Road, for $1.48 million in 2004. Four B is run by the Ball family, longtime area grocers who had been carrying the pies in their Hen House Markets and Price Choppers since the mid-1990s, when Tippin’s launched a branded pie operation.

Boyer declined to release current sales figures but said the company continues to grow its sales and territory. Tippin’s pies are now sold in 14 states, including California and New York, and it is in talks with supermarkets in the Pacific Northwest. Customers also can order the frozen pies online.

“I don’t think we can get the people of Kansas City to eat any more pies than they are already eating. So the growth has to come from other markets,” Boyer said.

While he won’t release sales figures, Boyer didn’t mind sharing some of the steps Tippin’s takes to make its pies.

“We could show our competitors how we do it but they won’t make it like we do. They won’t take the time,” he said.

He counts on the “tribal knowledge” of Baltazar Fernandez, director of manufacturing, to make sure Tippin’s products stay consistent. Fernandez has been a baker with Tippin’s since the first Lenexa restaurant and said there won’t be any skimping on the ingredients, “not on my watch,” he said.

Both Boyer and Fernandez taste samples of each and every batch, five days a week (note: Fernandez also runs marathons while Boyer cycles).

“There’s no bad food, only bad diets. Everything in moderation,” Boyer said.

The chocolate mousse for the French silk pie is whipped for about 90 minutes.

Tippin’s uses pastry flour and a palm soy shortening blend for its dough. Boyer would use lard if he could but Tippin’s is a kosher facility. Dough also is made in small batches using diving arm mixers, two metal arms that do just that — dive into the dough — but only for a set amount of times so it “doesn’t beat the dough to death,” Boyer said.

It is then divided and put under minimum pressure.

“You would put more pressure on it at home rolling it out. But the lack of pressure provides for the ultimate flakiness. Layers and layers and layers and layers of crust, dough and air, dough and air,” he said.

This year, Tippin’s rolled out a limited edition gluten-free pumpkin pie — their recipe but made at wholesale gluten-free Emily Kate’s Bakery in Prairie Village.

“Eating pie is an experience you share with family,” Boyer said. “Their grandmother served it during the holidays and now they serve it in their homes. There’s an emotional connection to our pies. They remember the experience.”

This story was originally published November 18, 2016 at 12:01 PM with the headline "Inside the secret to the success of Tippin’s pies."