As a mum juggling family and work, I know how much pressure there is to try to be perfect. But for me, a laid-back lunch shared with family or friends is so much more satisfying than a fussy four-course meal.
It’s not about cooking everything from scratch, either. Life’s too short. And these days, I’m happy to say, there’s just no need. How’s this for a lazy-but-lovely Saturday lunch? One of our cauliflower cheese & broccoli quiches, a bowl of those nice griddled artichokes from the deli counter and a thrown-together salad. Or if you happen to be eating alone, it could be as simple as a chicken pot pie and some quickly steamed greens.
For me, this is what Higgidy is all about. It’s not about striving for perfection. It’s about being a bit crafty, improvising – and feeling good, not guilty.
Besides, the slightly burned edges of a roast potato, or the gooey, undercooked middle of a chocolate fudge brownie: these are the good bits! Let’s celebrate them in all their imperfect glory.
After all, the best things in life are always a bit Higgidy
Our Story
The Higgidy story began back in 2003 when Camilla Stephens, our co-founder, spotted a gap in the market to deliver delicious, wholesome pies to our plates. With a lifelong love of cooking, she has been working in the Higgidy kitchen ever since with our dedicated team.
It all started with Camilla… “To say I was born with a whisk in my hand might be a slight overstatement. But only just. Ever since I was a little girl I have loved to cook. What started off as an excuse to make a mess without getting into too much trouble with mum soon turned into my favourite way to spend an afternoon. To be in the kitchen – mixing, chopping, stirring, simmering – was to be happy. And I soon learned it was a brilliant way to make others happy too.”
After studying at Prue Leith’s School of Cookery, Camilla went on to write recipes for Good Housekeeping, then moved onto developing food offerings for the Seattle Coffee Company, which later became Starbucks. After noticing a gap in the British pie market, Camilla spotted an opportunity to create delicious premium pies to fill this spot and so began making these in her own kitchen in West Sussex.
OUR FIRST PIE
After baking pies in her own kitchen at home in 2003, Camilla shared her creations with café chain ‘Eat’ and got her first break. In the same year, as if things weren’t busy enough, Camilla got engaged to James and a year later they were married.
OUR FIRST KITCHEN
Our first little kitchen was built in Southwick, West Sussex, which overlooked the sea. It was here that Camilla could really start to experiment and develop her new recipes.
Camilla then persuaded James to stop building tree-houses for a living and to join her making pies, consequently hiring the first Higgidy team. Yola (far right) is in fact still with us, as our longest standing member.
SOME ‘HELP’ FOR CAMILLA
Camilla and James realised that they needed an extra pair of hands to help come and run the business. Meanwhile, Mark Campbell – James’ best friend from Edinburgh University – was riding a bike round Afghanistan speaking Farsi, heading up the team at nonprofit organisation Medair.
“I agreed to come back to the UK to help Camilla and James build the first Higgidy website and then just never really left.”
AN IMPORTANT MOMENT
In 2006 Camilla, James and Mark made the decision to create a brand for their pies. In discussing ideas for names with friends and family, one of the children tasted a pie and described it as being a bit ‘Higgidy,’ which everyone rather liked.
In the same year, Higgidy was selected to become a new supplier to Sainsbury’s as part of the ‘Supply Something New’ scheme. So we bought our first lorry and on Valentine’s Day 2007, we supplied our pies for the first time to Sainsbury’s and have been proud to stock their shelves ever since.
FINDING A NEW HOME
In 2007 we moved to our current home in Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. It was considered such a large site at the time that James threw most of the office furniture away, assuming he’d never need it. At the same time, James and Camilla also made the move to Steyning just down the road and shortly after their daughter Kate was born, soon to be joined by Jack arriving 18 months later.
PARTNERING WITH FARESHARE
After setting up in Shoreham-by-Sea, we forged our important partnership with Fareshare Sussex, one that is still going strong to this day. Each week, we donate surplus pies, quiches and rolls to the FareShare team to distribute to food banks and the local community who need them.
UNLEASH THE QUICHE
In 2008, we set ourselves a new challenge in savoury pastry. ‘Can we make quiche cool?’ was the question we asked ourselves. As we did with pies, we brought a ‘Higgidy twist’ to both much-loved and new quiche recipes, introducing our now best-selling ‘Spinach, Feta and Roasted Red Pepper’ quiche to supermarket shelves. Did we make quiche cool? That may still be under debate, but we certainly made them delicious.
FEASTING AT FESTIVALS
Over the years the team have attended many a festival with the Higgidy trailer to feed the masses. We used to be a regular at The Big Feastival and have even served a few celebrities in our time, including the lovely Jo Wiley who joined us in the trailer at Camp Bestival. As our pies gained in popularity, we often found we had queues trailing back across the fields and one year we even hired a magician to keep the crowds entertained!
RELEASE THE ROLLS
After pies and quiche, we thought it best to get some friends in to the Higgidy kitchen to tell us what they wanted from us next. ‘Sausage rolls!’ they said and so we listened and delivered. In 2013, our first meat and veggie rolls were launched and in the same year Camilla also wrote her first recipe book, ‘Higgidy: The Cookbook.’
HIGGIDY HEROES
At Higgidy, our team place great importance on being brave, being smart and being kind and we like to recognise and reward these behaviours, especially when members of our team go above and beyond. ‘Higgidy Heroes’ was launched for just this purpose, so we can nominate our colleagues for their truly heroic acts and immortalise them in our Higgidy Hero gallery in the office.
THE PATTERN IS BORN
In 2017 we made the brave move to overhaul our packaging and discovered the power of the pattern, creating bold and bright designs with our amazing illustrator Hannah Turpin.
THE GLORY OF VEG
We like to celebrate the ‘glory of veg’ at Higgidy and the incredible flavours, textures and versatility that veggies offer. In 2019, we launched our first plant based pie recipe for Veganuary and got busy developing our first plant based and veggie ready meals too, placing veg firmly in the centre of the plate where they belong.
Camilla also published a second cookbook, ‘Higgidy: The Veggie Cookbook’, celebrating the glory of veg in all 120 recipes.
HIGGIDY HELPING HAND
With 2020 being a challenging year for so many, we launched Higgidy Helping Hand to support our local community and our team both packed and delivered over 31,000 meals for our partner charities, as well as continuing to donate to FareShare.
In the same year we also became a proud Real Living Wage employer.
Veg-Packed Quiches
After lot’s of peeling, chopping, mashing and pureeing, we carefully crafted our Veg-Packed Quiches using our specially made pastry which includes even more delicious veg. Vibrantly veggie, inside and out!
Find out more about our Veg-Packed Quiche range here.
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