The Australian meat pie is iconic in Australian culture. Australians have the worlds largest consumption with an average of 12 meat pies per year and the popular brand Four'N'Twenty produce 50,000 pies per hour.

In the 1970s meat pies were mentioned in an advertising jingle for General Motors Holden Australia. The jingle - Football, meat pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars, they go together underneath the Southern Stars - was an adaptation of an American jingle for the General Motors Chevrolet brand. Holden is owned by General Motors. The jingle has also been adapted to other nations selling GM vehicles, such as South Africa.

History

The Australian meat pie manufacturer Four'N'Twenty makes the dubious claim that the pie was invented in 1947 by L. T. McClure in a small Bendigo bakery, to become the brand Four'N'Twenty. However the history of the meat pie is much older than this. The pie manufacturer Sargent can trace their pie making back to 1906 and in fact at the opening of the Old Parliament House in 1927, Sargent meat pies were served. Or rather 10,000 pies were not served and the left-over pies had to be buried nearby.

It should also be noted that "Australian" meat pies are not unique, and are not especially different to English meat pies that existed prior to 1906.

Low Nutrional Value

New South Wales Premier Mr Bob Carr launched a Childhood Obesity Summit in 2002 where he told participants that feeding children a diet of meat pies, sausage rolls and chiko rolls was akin to child cruelty.

In April 2002, the Australian Consumers Association conducted a study of 22 frozen meat pies available in supermarkets. They found three of them did not meet the minimum 25 per cent meat content requirement set by Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), they also found that the fat content ranged from 15 to 35 grams of fat per pie.

The meats allowed by FSANZ in a meat pie are buffalo, camel, cattle, deer, goat, hare, pig, poultry, rabbit and sheep.

External Links

• Sargents
• Four'N'Twenty
• Shakespeares