GUESTS on Alan Titchmarsh’s ITV show on Sunday, including TV legend Dame Penelope Keith, tucked into pork pies from Whitchurch, much to their creator’s delight.
Powells Pies, in Watergate, were featured on Love Your Weekend’s food and drink section with Andy Clarke pairing the tasty goods for Dame Penelope, actor Robert Lindsay and West End singer Marisha Wallace, plus the host.
Marie Powell, co-owner with husband Andrew, admitted they were ‘blown away’ when Andy contacted them asking to use the pies on the show after meeting him at Shrewsbury Flower Festival.
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“About six weeks ago, he phoned us up out of the blue and said that, as he does the booze section of Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh, he was doing a section on festival favourites,” she said.
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“He said he wanted to feature us which completely blew us away.
“A month ago, we sent some pork pies down to a production studio in London and it was on TV this weekend.
“We knew it was going to Alan and Andy but we didn’t know who else so to see that it was Dame Penelope Keith and Robert Lindsay, acting legends.
“Dame Penelope is a hero – I loved To the Manor Born and to a lot of people she’s Margo from the Good Life.
“The whole fact that Alan and all of them were eating our pies is incredible.”
She said that to receive national acclaim for the pies was enough but said that they have phone calls and emails from ‘all over the country’.
Marie added: “We’re just a little pie maker in Whitchurch so this whole thing of people phoning us up all from all the country is incredible.
“We were still at a market so we haven’t seen it properly on the TV, just clips on our phone.
“From Sunday to Monday, we’ve had lots of emails and phone calls asking if we deliver by post and whether we sell online – it’s had a noticeable impact.
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“We had a chap walk in on Monday morning who hadn’t heard of us but only lived on the other side of Ellesmere and drove over to get a pie.
“It’s a bit surreal – we kept it quiet but then the production company said the new series was going to start on Sunday but we didn’t know we’d be on the first one.
“We’re massively proud of ourselves – it’s a bit surreal.”
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