Pie Time: This Wick Still Burns Bright

Slice of Sugar Cream PieMike Wickersham is the president of Wick’s Pies in Winchester, Ind., a third generation family company. Wick’s Pies dates back to 1944 when Wickersham’s father, Duane (nicknamed “Wick”), opened a restaurant and began making pies. I visited Mrs. Wick’s Pie Shop, the restaurant across the street from the production facility, for a tourism story in the January-February issue of BizVoice magazine.

Indiana Chamber: The sugar cream pie is delicious! I understand it is a patented recipe?

Mike Wickersham: Bluebird Pie Company out of Dayton, Ohio, which was one of his large competitors, knew the popularity of his sugar cream pie and was trying to steal the recipe. So my dad decided it would be a good idea to get a patent on that, so he hired a local attorney and received a patent in July of 1962. He was concerned about losing that niche market that my dad had, because Bluebird was a lot larger than he was.

IC: Sugar cream pie was declared the state pie of Indiana in 2009. How has that designation impacted your business?

MW: It’s brought a lot of familiarity to the product. That spring, we sold three times as many sugar cream pies as we had in any previous spring. We had a lot of interest from Illinois – if you’ll remember, they were trying to impeach their governor (Rod Blagojevich) at the same time. So I had radio stations call me from Illinois wanting to compare what their legislature was doing with our legislature. When you’ve got people talking about your product, it adds to the mystique and popularity and generally increases sales.

IC: What other products do you offer?

MW: In the Midwest, Wick’s brand is known for sugar cream pie and pecan pie, but throughout the country, we’re really known more for our pie shells. We ship pie shells into about 40 states around the country. We make pie shells as small as 3” and up to 10”.

IC: Is there anything new on the horizon?

MW: We’re in the process of establishing an e-commerce shopping site. We do a lot of mail order, and right now, a customer is required to buy at least six pies at a time and have them shipped overnight. That becomes rather expensive. We’re developing a website that would be an online shop for the consumer to buy as few as one and as many as six (pies), and it could be a variety of product, with an option of a second-day air.

Wick’s Pies by the numbers:

  • Oven holds 1,500 pies at one time
  • 55,000 pounds of flour used per week on average
  • 450,000 cubic feet of freezer space
  • Capacity to run 60,000 units (pies and pie shells) per day

Read the full article.

Wick’s Pies: Maximizing Its Chamber Investment Through Compliance Resources

foodserviceLife is sweet at Wick’s Pies

The family-owned business, which opened in 1944 and has been an Indiana Chamber member since 1984, has a tight-knit team that whips up flavors such as pecan, pumpkin, sugar crème (the state pie), coconut crème, German chocolate and more. During an eight-hour production shift, the associates can bake as many as 12,000 pies. In addition, they can make 40 shells per minute in a seven-hour period.

Wick’s has spawned Wick’s Foods (which makes pie glaze for Wick’s Pies) and a restaurant – all located within a block of one another in Winchester.

Human resources specialist Tonya Fouse notes that prior to joining Wick’s Pies in 2006, “I worked in the automotive industry and was a purchasing manager. I had strong managerial skills, but I didn’t know a thing about HR.

“It was baptism by fire and our tool to teach me was the Indiana Chamber – the seminars I went to, all the reading material I could get my hands on (citing publications that cover topics such as unemployment law, worker’s compensation and labor relations), and the (helpline) resources I could call.”

Fouse proudly shares that she earned the Chamber’s Human Resources Specialist Certificate in 2012 after attending a variety of training events. In addition, she routinely utilizes the Chamber’s HR Helpline, a free, confidential resource exclusively available to members.

“We’ve just about hit every topic there is. With FMLA (for instance), it seems there’s always something that evolves. I totally trust in that resource, and it’s wonderful for me to be able to shoot an email (to director of human resources Michelle Kavanaugh) and a response comes back within the hour. It’s been a lifesaving tool for me.

“(The Chamber) kind of formed me and molded me into the HR specialist I am today.”