Bristol specialist food and restaurant group Pieminister has partnered with Ed Sheeran to launch an exclusive pie range – with the singer giving away free samples at his beloved Ipswich Town’s first match back in the Premier League on Saturday.
The pies, which include Ed’s Tingly Ted’s brand of hot sauce among their ingredients, are the latest in Pieminister’s Handy range, produced specially to eat on-the-go, hot or cold. 
Introduced earlier this year, the pies are already available with a range of meat, vegetarian and plant-based fillings, including a link-up with meat alternatives company This.
The partnership with Tingly Ted’s is the first for Ed Sheeran’s sauce range, called after his childhood nickname.
The vegan-friendly sauces – Tingly and Xtra Tingly – were launched in February last year after nearly two years of crafting by the Shape of You singer and his band of sauce experts.
The link-up with Pieminister offers two pies - Tingly Ted’s x Pieminister Chilli Beef Handy Pie, which includes beef chilli and Tingly Ted’s hot sauce and cheddar, and Tingly Ted’s x Pieminister Veggie Chilli Handy Pie, which mixes three-bean chilli with Tingly Ted’s hot sauce and cheddar.
As a life-long Ipswich Town fan, Ed wanted to launch the range at the club’s first home match since gaining promotion to the Premier League after an absence of 22 seasons. 
He joined serving staff on the Pieminister/Tingly Ted’s pop up in the Portman Road FanZone to hand out free pies, pictured, ahead of the game, which Ipswich lost 2:0 to Liverpool.
Ed, who announced last week that he has acquired a minority stake in the Tractor Boys, said: “I love fusing both my loves – football and food. It’s our first Tingly Ted’s pop up at Ipswich and hopefully not the last.”
Pieminister co-founder and managing director Jon Simon added: “For match day snacking our new Handy pies are in a league of their own. So when we were asked to create two new Handy recipes with Tingly Ted’s we knew we were on to a winner.
“Adding a bit of heat to the pre-game fan zone, those lucky enough to get their hands on our first ever batch of Tingly Ted’s handy pies will be more than ready for kick off.”
Jon Simon and his brother-in-Iaw Tristan Hogg launched Pieminister with one outlet in Stokes Croft in 2003.
Since then it was built a formidable reputation for re-inventing the humble British pie and innovating new fillings, including a focus on high-welfare British meat recipes and plant-based fillings since day one.
Today, the £17m-turnover group employs nearly 300 people and has restaurants in Bristol, Bath, Cardiff, Derby, Leeds, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent as well as a central kitchen in Bristol.
