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Otago Daily Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Otago Daily Times
From refugee to mini pastry empire: Baker creating pies 'that inspire me'
Serey Chum's steak and cheese pie placed third out of more than 400 entries at the Bakels NZ Pie Awards. Photos: Geoff Sloan From humble beginnings, 73-year-old baker Serey Chum has built a mini pie empire - and earned acclaim for his top-quality pies. At the prestigious Bakels NZ Pie Awards held recently, his steak and cheese pie was third out of more than 400 entries in its category. Referred to as the 'Pie-Olympics' due to the high number of entries, 520 bakeries nationwide submitted 4600 pies for judging in 11 categories. 'I'm very excited to win our first medal in any competition,' Chum said. Chum's journey to bakery success was not straightforward. Driven by the dream of a better future for his wife Mey and four children, Chum and his family fled their homeland of Cambodia on foot, taking only what they could carry. In the early 1990s, Cambodia was gripped by political unrest, with Khmer Rouge insurgents still active and the government imposing strict controls on citizens. 'We never felt safe, it was like North Korea. There are no freedoms like here (New Zealand). No freedom to talk or do anything.' The month-long escape to Thailand involved sleeping rough and foraging for food. The Cambodian government forbade people leaving the country. 'If we got caught it would have been bad, but luckily we were okay,' Chum said. The family was granted refugee status in Thailand and migrated to Sydney in the mid-1990s where Chum worked as a storeman and machine operator. He had seen pictures of New Zealand and heard it was a great place to live. 'It's four seasons in one day. Beautiful green country, peaceful.' In 2001, Chum and his family moved to Christchurch after he was offered a job at smallgoods business Hellers in Kaiapoi. 'I worked there for a while and then went into partnership with my friend Tao Leng who had bakery experience,' Chum said. The pair opened a shop, Bakery on Bower, in North New Brighton in 2002. It was there Chum discovered his passion for pies. He studied, took courses, and refined his skills. 'From that day on, I made the pies that inspired me. I wanted to learn more about them.' Chum's son Oudom said his dad was a very hard worker. 'I remember my dad at the beginning. He would work seven days, sometimes from 4am to 10pm, perfecting pies.' Serey Chum bought Aorangi Bakery two weeks before the February 2011 earthquake. Photo: Geoff Sloan Chum always had the goal of one day owning his own business. 'When the opportunity opened up for him, he gave it 110%,' Oudom said. After three years at the Bower Bakery, Chum was able to buy out his partner, with a plan to expand the business. Just two weeks before the February 2011 earthquake, he purchased Aorangi Bakery on Greers Rd – a move that saved his business after the Bower Ave shop was badly damaged. 'It must have been a premonition, because when the earthquake hit, our Bower Ave building was badly damaged,' Chum said. The Greers Rd branch was undamaged. He later acquired Woodend Bakery in 2016, and in 2019 added Sockburn Bakery to the business. Chum took over Lincoln's Rustic Bakery Cafe in August last year, changing its name to Selwyn Bakery. Oudom manages it, while Mey and daughter Pisey operate Aorangi Bakery and nephew Dara runs Sockburn Bakery. Chum manages the Woodend branch, which recently doubled in size to supply baked goods to the other locations. Fifty staff are employed across the four bakeries. 'This year was a hard one for us, with the economy a bit slow at the moment,' Chum said. 'But we still sell around 1000 pies a day across the four bakeries.' The Selwyn Bakery. Photo: Geoff Sloan They offer about 30 different pie options, including a new corned beef silverside pie added this month. Most of the ingredients are sourced from North Canterbury. 'We use quality ingredients, to make it worth the money customers pay for it,' Chum said. The bronze medal pie was created by Chum's nephew Soth Mai, who perfected the recipe with feedback from his Selwyn Bakery workmates. 'One month before the competition I practised making pies daily and let them taste the results,' Mai said. 'They let me know what to improve – the colour, the texture.' The pies have earned Chum a loyal following – not just from locals, but from sporting stars like Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Sam Whitelock and Will Jordan. 'Regular customers are just as important,' Chum said. 'Without the support of locals, we wouldn't be here.' Despite the success, Chum is not slowing down, with plans to enter every category in next year's pie awards. 'Next year we will have more time and more space and the plan is to enter all the categories, this time with new product. 'I'm hoping we can work towards a gold medal in the next couple of years,' he said.
NZ Herald
24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
What to expect at the Auckland Food Show: Spray-on wasabi, ice cream cubes and everything else we sampled
Bite-sized sausages, new from Hellers, are available in abundance at The Food Show in Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray From Friday to Sunday, the Auckland Showgrounds will host a rolling maul of gluttons, gourmands and food and drink aficionados. Thousands will sink their teeth into the edible wares of more than 200 exhibitors flogging everything from salt and vinegar flavoured cheese to yuzu and lime marshmallow. My advice? Come hungry, thirsty and towing a suitcase – no amount of protein-infused ice cream will prepare your clavicle for the weight of a tote bag full of hemp fermented pesto and kimchi. My brief was simple: walk, sample and report. It was food for thought and I had more than a few of them ... 1. Is there anything they won't put protein in? Pancake mix. Ice cream. Coffee. This is a very bad year to be an actual protein. Grande Ice Cream at The Food Show, Auckland, was one of the many products powered with extra protein. Photo / Sylvie Whinray 2. 1983 called and it wants the recipe for Hellers curried beef sausage. This is a seriously Mum-approved smallgood. 3. Raspberry and pomegranate, apple and lychee, lemon and watermelon. Bundaberg, you've changed. 4. If the pork-free bacon is made from chicken, is it still bacon? If the pork-free bacon is made from lamb, is it still bacon? Asking for a confused piglet. 5. Citrus australasica has been growing in Queensland and New South Wales for approximately 18 million years. I suppose it was only a matter of time before New Zealand joined the finger lime party. 6. Lady Alchemy's tamari, wasabi, ginger and horopito spritz might be the best thing since sliced sushi. Lady Alchemy sprays at The Food Show, Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray 7. Artisan scones are a thing and across the provinces, grandmothers are turning in their graves (but, also, raspberry and white chocolate scones – thank you, Sconelicious). 8. Could the first store to stock cumin-seed Zeera Bites (from Fiji company Punjas) please call me? 9. If the only thing missing from your life was a Peking duck-flavoured snack chip made from Scottish seaweed and quinoa, then go see the people at Macy and Tailor. 10. Have you people never seen salami before? 11. Did you sniff Colin Mathura Jeffree's tiny fairy bread lapel pin because he told you it was scented? He was lying. 12. Tommy, the new honey and ginger liqueur from Thomson Whisky, was probably not developed as a cure for the common cold but it's definitely worth experimenting. Annabelle White adds some cooking, and comedic, content to The Food Show, Auckland. Photo / Sylvie Whinray 13. SideCar's smoky habanero mayo. Proving Marlborough makes more than a great sav. 14. I counted three food writers with sesame paste dry noodles in their bags and at least one of them was me. I absolutely did not judge any of them. 15. Cubed ice cream in a triangle cone – discuss. Treble Cones are the genius triple treat coming soon to a mall, and an Instagram account, near you. 16. Breakfast in a bag? Radix (fruit, seeds, just add water, etc) tastes way better than it sounds. 17. On any given yesterday, Fair Food rescued three tonnes of edible fresh produce and redistributed it to people who didn't have enough to eat. Kim Knight is a senior journalist with the New Zealand Herald's lifestyle desk. She was a restaurant critic for Canvas magazine and has a Master's in Gastronomy from AUT.
