THUNDER BAY — National Pi Day is typically celebrated around the world on the 14th day of the third month each year.
The symbol Pi is used in mathematics to represent a constant or a ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, which is approximately 3.14159.
Celebrating Pi Day for some involved visiting Pie-ology at their May Street location for a local delight.
When Pie-ology customers Malcolm and Amanda Hope learned that the original owner of the hand pie company was leaving in 2018, there was no question about what to do. The pair became the new owners of the company.
Fast-forward to 2024, and they have expanded from the Thunder Bay Country Market with their own storefront on May Street and offer more than 50 varieties of hand pies at both locations.
Pie-ology makes sure to include supplies from local businesses in every pie they make.
"When we took over the business, there were already connections in place with some local suppliers," Malcolm Hope said. "As we expanded the menu to include new pies, we wanted to support local businesses."
He explained when they develop a new idea for a hand pie, the first thing they do is look to see if the particular ingredients are available locally.
"Sometimes local products are not available all the time and sometimes they're unfortunately a little bit too expensive and we have to think about overall the cost of each hand pie and how much it costs us to buy ingredients," he said.
When they came up with the idea of their pizza hand pie, Hope said they were not going to do it unless they could find local pepperoni. They learned that their neighbouring vendor, My Pride Farm, at the Thunder Bay Country Market, produced pepperoni, and Hope said that's how their pizza hand pie was developed.
Pie-ology uses food supplies from more than a dozen local businesses, each one featured in the dish's description on their menu.
With the short growing season, some foods are only available at certain times of the year.
"Strawberry season lasts for one to three weeks. So as soon as Belluz Farm advertises that they have strawberries, we put in a big order," Hope said, adding they use some of them right away and then freeze the rest of those strawberries that go into our Bumbleberry hand pies for as long as we can make our freezer stash last.
"DeBruin's Greenhouses is another one of our neighbouring vendors and when they have their tomatoes ready, we'll buy 15 to 20 pounds at a time," he said "We make a tomato basil hand pie, and that's available as long as the DeBruin's tomato supply lasts, which is throughout the summer,"
The Chronicle Journal / Local Journalism Initiative
