The pies and sausage rolls are baked at the Kuripuni bakery by 16 staff. The range is packaged and distributed through Masterton businesses, with meats and most ingredients sourced in Wairarapa.
Mr Carruthers said the pair came up with the concept of a Wairarapa-branded pie two years ago and had expected the Waipie brand to quickly reach the marketplace. Instead, the launch date took a year to reach despite their initial expectation of "a couple of months".
"We'd had the bakery for about three years and everyone used to rave about our pies. So we thought if they were good, we may as well try them on the market. Every other region had their own. There's your Maketu and Ponsonby pies, Andersons in Taranaki, Oxford in Hamilton but Wairarapa just didn't have one. Now we have."
Mr Duncan handled the business and Mr Carruthers took a role as managing director and promotions, he said, this year also coming to grips with the routine and rigmarole of baking.
"We were living next door to each other and really that's where our friendship started, so we're not just business partners, we're friends. Hamish had the experience of running businesses and is very much controlling that side of things, whereas I'm getting out and meeting people and promoting.
"He's the backroom stuff and I'm front of house - he's the case and I'm the crust I guess, to use that analogy, and we're both very much about the filling."
"That just fell into place really because of his experience in running businesses. He didn't really have the time to be too hands-on and knew how those things worked, which was a lot easier than trying to teach yourself, which is what I would have had to do," Mr Carruthers said.
"I think Hamish and I are coming at this from complementary angles and there's no overlap and no conflict."
Waipie products are based on a recipe developed in Kuripuni at a bakery that was launched on the same site in 1983, Mr Carruthers said, and the recipe had "besides a pinch of salt" remained unchanged. The bakery had more lately traded as the Kuripuni Hot Bread Shop.
"Our next goal is to go wider than Wairarapa and we're talking to a distributor about outlets in Kapiti. We're at capacity staff-wise right now but we'll probably have to increase numbers as we grow. We've achieved what we thought would take us five years in half that time, which again probably comes back to our naivete. So things are not looking too bad at all right now."
Mr Carruthers said expansion beyond Wairarapa will focus on capturing Wellington, Manawatu and "maybe" Hawke's Bay outlets, where they hope the Waipie taste, range and understated packaging will appeal to pie connoisseurs and "our main consumer, the tradies" alike.
"We just wanted to bring a local pie to Wairarapa, so we had our own. It was a bit of an impulse decision - we never knew just how big it could get - and now it's getting traction because it really is a cool product and something we believe in."
