MO Pie’s popularity leads to a future Leawood shop

By Ben McCarthy

Business is booming for Leawood’s Curtis Lafferty and his gourmet pie startup, MO Pie. After five years, MO Pie has finally landed its long sought after brick-and-mortar retail headquarters, and it’s not far from Lafferty’s longtime Leawood residence.

“My wife and I found this place on a Sunday walk,” Lafferty says. “We just saw a sign that the space was available.”

The space at 7956 Lee Boulevard will provide Lafferty, a former Vice President for Tippins, a permanent, public home for MO Pie, which currently bakes five days a week at K-State’s Innovation Campus in Olathe.

The location will soon be open for the holiday season, but only briefly as a “pop-up” for Thanksgiving (November 24 – 26) and Christmas (December 22 – 24). Lafferty plans to gauge customer response and eventually have a permanent presence there by the end of July.

For those looking to grab a blueberry cobbler or a cherry lattice pie for Thanksgiving off the company’s website (mopieco.com), you’re probably too late. Lafferty says their inventory has already been bought up through Thanksgiving, but MO Pie will have a presence at the Holiday Boutique at the Overland Park Convention Center this weekend, giving customers one last chance to grab a pie. Lafferty says they are busy preparing about a thousand pies for the show.

MO Pie only saw about 25% of this business last year at this time, according to Lafferty. The boom in demand has stretched the company’s production capacity to its limits. On Monday, Lafferty was up at 4 am, with plans to work until 10 pm, just to ensure production for the week was going to be met. Currently, his equipment at the Olathe location is at capacity: the mixer can only handle about 39 pounds of pie filling, and the oven can only cook 36 pies per hour.

“The new mixer will handle 600 pounds of pie filling at a time,” Lafferty says. “The new oven will bake 240 to 480 pies per hour.”

Lafferty has been in the pie business his whole life. Before working 20 years for Tippins, he worked in sales and marketing for everyone from Mrs. Smith’s to Sara Lee. He launched MO Pie in 2020, after honoring a one year non-compete clause with Tippins.

Five years later, the products are in nearly 280 retailers around the Midwest, and growing. Consentino’s Price Chopper has recently added MO Pie to 10 local stores.

“Sales are up about 75% since getting into the freezer door,” Lafferty says. “Our pies were $16.99 when Covid hit. They’re now $28. But we have no complaints about price points – our repeat customers are constant.”

Much of that customer feedback comes at the many farmers markets around town where MO Pie maintains a presence. Originally only featured at the Overland Park Farmers’ Market, now Lafferty has booths in Parkville and Lee’s Summit. Some products, like the new 4-inch gluten-free pies, have been such an overwhelming success that Lafferty chooses not to promote it since the company can barely keep pace.

“People with celiac disease come to us at the markets and tell us it’s the best gluten free dessert they’ve ever had,” Lafferty says. “Word has spread around that community, and more people are coming to us seeking gluten-free products.”

When leaving Tippins in 2019, Lafferty envisioned a pie-making operation that could respond to such customer insight, and maintain a flexibility to incorporate specialty and seasonal pies throughout the calendar year.

“The Bourbon Chocolate Pecan was something we had at Christmas, but calls from customers pushed it into a Thanksgiving offering as well,” Lafferty says. “Now, it’s one of our best sellers of the season.”

The German Chocolate Cobbler is another selection that has been made available year round, due to tremendous customer demand.

Lafferty says he plans to continue his relationship with K-State and maintain his Olathe site, where his team can continue to experiment with other flavors and continue to build new recipes. The future of delivery to markets outside of Kansas City looks very bright as well.

“We found a carrier based in Troy, Missouri, who does a fantastic job with frozen hauling,” Lafferty says. “That means we can ship full pallets to places like Champaign, Illinois.”

Lafferty’s son, Michael, has been helping him bake in the early, pre-sunrise hours, while daughter-in-law, Kelsey manages the company’s growing social media presence. When the Thanksgiving blitz ends next week, they will turn their attention to Christmas offerings, including Boston Creme Pie and Chocolate Peppermint pie. Lafferty says the Christmas season is historically far more manageable than Thanksgiving.

“Christmas is nothing compared to Thanksgiving,” Lafferty says. “We’ll maybe do 60% of the business we’re doing now.”

Sounds like…a piece of cake?

“Exactly,” Lafferty says.