For over 20 years, Pieminister has been a fixture of the UK hospitality scene. A family-owned brand known for quality pies, strong values, and a loyal following, the business has always taken pride in doing things properly - from sourcing ingredients to running a sustainable operation behind the scenes.
But in a climate where footfall is unpredictable, lunch volumes are under pressure, and costs continue to rise, running a tight operation has never mattered more. For Pieminister, that meant having complete confidence in the numbers - and making sure finance, operations, and leadership were all working from the same reality.
The challenge: A legacy tech stack built for a different era
As the business evolved, so did its technology stack. Over time, Pieminister accumulated more than 10 systems across POS, reporting, inventory, labour, and payments.
At the centre sat Access Group, a long-standing legacy system holding years of historical data. While it had supported the business in the past, it wasn’t designed for real-time, multi-site operational decision-making.
The result was fragmentation. Key data lived in different places. Reports relied on manual workarounds. Month-end close could take over a week. And teams across the business often trusted different numbers, depending on which system they were pulling from.
We had lots of data, but not enough clarity, if you wanted one piece of information, you had to dig for it.
Morgan Evans, Retail Finance Manager at Pieminister
For finance, this meant time spent reconciling rather than analysing. For operations, it slowed decision-making. And as trading conditions tightened, the gap between data and action became a real risk.
The solution
Pieminister’s move to Square as its POS created an opportunity to rethink the wider systems landscape. Rather than layering new tools on top of existing software, the team made a deliberate shift towards consolidation, choosing Nory as the operational platform to connect sales, labour, and inventory in one place.
“Nory filled a gap we didn’t even fully realise we had,” Morgan explains. “It wasn’t about deep analytics at the start. It was about clarity - and having numbers we could trust.”
The integration between Square and Nory became a critical part of that setup.
The integration between Square and Nory has been critical for us. Every sale flows straight through, which means we have one auditable source of truth for sales, labour, and stock. It’s removed a lot of reconciliation headaches and massively improved accuracy.
Nory was implemented alongside Square to replace manual reporting processes and reduce reliance on legacy systems. The rollout was transparent, configured around how Pieminister actually operates, and adopted across finance, operations, and site teams.
Faster decisions. Cleaner data. More honest conversations.
With sales, labour, and inventory connected in real time through Nory, the impact was immediate - particularly for the finance team.
Month-end close and reporting, which previously took over a week of manual work, is now dramatically faster.
Nory has reduced the time we spend on month-end and reporting by around 50%. What used to take over a week of manual work is now far more streamlined because everything lives in one place.
Weekly performance reviews that once absorbed most of a day can now be completed in a couple of hours. Instead of reconciling reports across systems, teams can focus on understanding performance and taking action.
More importantly, the conversations across the business have changed.
With Nory, there’s no debate over whose numbers are right anymore. Finance, ops, and GMs are all looking at the same data.
This shared view has improved accountability and trust, enabling more honest, productive discussions between finance and operations.
Waste control has also tightened. While Pieminister has long targeted food waste at 1% or below, better visibility through Nory means many sites now operate consistently closer to 0.2–0.4% in normal trading weeks - representing an approximate 60% reduction in waste from the original benchmark.
For a business operating on tight margins, even fractional percentage gains translate into meaningful savings across the estate. These improvements also align with Pieminister's own ambitious sustainability commitments. As a certified B Corporation, environmental responsibility sits alongside financial performance as a core measure of success.
Enabling smarter experimentation
With a clear operational picture, Pieminister is now able to experiment with confidence.
This clarity has also given Pieminister the confidence to test new value-led lunch offers, designed to bring customers back into city centres without losing control of labour, waste, or margins.
Because we trust the data in Nory, we can change things and measure the impact quickly, Morgan explains. We’re not guessing anymore.
What’s next
Consistency, control, and fewer surprises
Looking ahead, Pieminister’s focus is simple: consistent performance, clean data, and stronger margins.
As the business continues to evolve - whether through new formats, seasonal trading, or future expansion - Nory plays a central role in ensuring systems scale without returning to legacy complexity.
If we open a new site, Nory lets us get set up in minutes, says Morgan. Everything’s already there. That level of control is huge for us.
With finance and operations aligned around a single source of truth, Pieminister is well positioned to navigate whatever comes next - staying true to its values while running a tighter, more confident operation behind the scenes.
