Biti Pies

Once upon a time in the mid-1980s in the Texas panhandle, there was a little house nestled within a sleepy town called Sundown. And in that little house was a tiny girl who loved to bake pies of an itsy bitsy size. They called her Biti because just like her pies, she was bite-sized.

She and her mom sold their tasty treats at the lone gas station on the town’s one main street. Held in the hand, and gone in just a few bites, many a hungry traveller were pleased with Biti’s pastries of curious size; indeed, her miniature creations’ popularity grew, by and by.

With orders on a steady increase, it was clear that the little house could not possibly hold all the dough that Biti needed to knead! So with a scrimp and a great big leap of faith, the year 2006 was when the Little Biti Girl and her mom went to Amarillo to open up their very own store. The bakery’s name was the same as what was her claim to fame: BITI PIES.

Despite the whimsical tone, this entertaining story of a little girl and her pies is a faithful account of how a local bakery and its namesake pastries came to be. Recognized ubiquitously in the Texas panhandle, Biti Pies is the entrepreneurial vision of Mark and Skeeter Huffaker. The bakery’s iconic miniature pastries have enjoyed a long-standing tenure as a popular snack choice found exclusively in the local convenience chain, PAK-A-SAK.

Sales gained a strong foothold and remained steady through the decade. But as the bakery entered its 10th year of operation, the Huffakers saw the benchmark as an opportunity for strategy and came to Nobox Creative with the purpose of refreshing the brand.

We made the unusual step of immediately assembling focus groups in order to evaluate the current positioning of Biti Pies with consumers. Because a brand’s identity is built from a user’s experience with the product itself, the collected responses of the focus group gave us a wealth of insight and tangible data to work with as the rebranding took shape.

We started with packaging first. The new look needed to reflect the “small but mighty” spirit of the bite-sized pastries and the no-frills personal feel that had helped make the brand so successful.

The color palette of this new look was selected to impart a keen sense of fresh warmth that could easily draw the eye, even in a full store display. The graphic element of a half-eaten pie was chosen to elicit the sense of gustatory pleasure held by an itty bitty pie. The new look and feel of Biti Pies was implemented in the packaging, the website and social media platforms, providing a cohesive and uniform look to the brand.

Once rebranding was finished, the Huffakers decided to put their new look to the ultimate test: the Core-Mark Independent Trade Show that took place outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico on September 12, 2017. The trade show was their foray into deeper waters, as they would be side-by-side with larger brands and competitors.

Before their departure for Albuquerque, they had 200 wholesale accounts. Upon their return, they had an estimated 900 wholesale accounts.

This amounts to an unprecedented 275% increase in sales.