Echuca home of Pacdon Park pork pie

Following their unsuccessful hunt for the perfect pork pie in Australia over a decade ago, two English backpackers decided to take matters into their own hands.

Pacdon Park Free Range Butchery's Pete Tonge (left) and Jim Arrowsmith (right) outside their Echuca-Moama British smallgoods factory.

As any great Aussie business idea should start, Pacdon Park Free Range Butcher’s came about after two English backpackers got chatting over a BBQ.

Jim Arrowsmith and Pete Tonge had been using Jim’s godfather, Anthony Haworth’s pig farm, Pacdon Park at Bunnaloo, NSW, as a base camp for their travels and were discussing how they couldn’t find a decent pork pie in Australia “for love nor money”.

They decided to make them themselves.

“Pete was a chef, I had a business degree and my godfather said, you can use my pigs and the old dairy, so we started in 2008 on the farm and launched into the food sphere,” Jim said.

Pacdon Park's range of British smallgoods.

They converted the derelict dairy shed into a commercial kitchen and began producing free range pork products with the ethos “Making what we miss”.

The business grew quickly and in 2010 they set up a new factory in nearby Echuca-Moama on the banks of the Murray River.

The range of artisan British smallgoods include pork pie, scotch egg, black pudding, haggis, white pudding, dry cured streaky bacon, cold smoked bacon, sausages, and even pigs in blankets.

“We have a wee factory shop in the old milk room in the dairy, you could barely swing a piglet in it but that’s the shop and we have people making pilgrimages to visit and who plan their holidays around coming to us,” Jim said.

“It’s that food from your childhood that is quite nostalgic. People often call us in tears because they’ve had a pork pie and it reminds them of home.

“It is a lovely type of business to be in. It touches the heart.”

Products are available locally at various outlets in Echuca, stockists around the country and online.