By Ian McConnell

BROWNINGS the Bakers has won a contract to supply 46 of supermarket group Asda’s 60 Scottish stores with its award-winning Kilmarnock Pie.

The bakery, which employs more than 180 people in and around Kilmarnock, already supplies its pies to retailers including Aldi, Sainsbury and Waitrose, its managing director John Gall noted.

Darvel FC owner Mr Gall highlighted the fact that Brownings’ Kilmarnock Pie had last year won the best pie in Scottish football award for the Ayrshire junior club.

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Asda noted the product was a “traditional Scotch pie shell filled with chunks of beef, enriched with a secret blend of rich gravy and topped with a flaky, puff-pastry lid”.

Brownings resumed its pie-supply deal with Kilmarnock Football Club last season, Mr Gall noted, after a break of a couple of years in this longstanding relationship. The baker also makes an award-winning steak-and-ale pie sold in recent years by Ayr United at Somerset Park.

Earlier this year, Kilmarnock FC announced a kit-sponsorship deal with Brownings, which was established in 1945 by Mr Gall’s grandparents.

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Mr Gall said Brownings, which has food outlets in Kilmarnock and nearby towns such as Stewarton, was “working at full capacity”.

He added: “We have been very busy lately.”

Mr Gall declared it was “fantastic” to supply Asda with the Kilmarnock Pie for the first time.

He added: “Brownings is a proud, family-run traditional company, now employing over 180 staff. We handcraft all our products from a purpose-built bakery and savoury factory. Our founding principles haven’t changed – a local business sourcing the finest ingredients to create products of the highest quality. Those principles have served the company for over 70 years.”