McDonald's Doesn't Actually Make Its Pies. Here's The Company That Does

You may think that huge fast food conglomerates would make all of their products in-house. They have the capital, they have the facilities, and they definitely have the know-how after decades in business. But most companies acquire products from other producers. Sure, McDonald's started making its own ketchup after cutting ties with Heinz in 2013, but many other menu items are completely outsourced. McDonald's fries come from the Lamb Weston company, which has been supplying them since 1971. So who makes the iconic McDonald's pies? It turns out those sweet and crunchy hand-held pies come from Bama Companies, Inc, headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

According to Bama's website, the company started producing fried apple pies for McDonald's in 1968. It was the first dessert item on the menu and ultimately led to dozens of flavors and spin-offs, like pineapple, pumpkin, and strawberry, but it's the classic apple pie that has stood the test of time. And it all began with a fortuitous sales pitch that happened to be made at the exact right moment.

Cornelia Alabama "Bama" Marshall, first began selling her homemade sweet potato pies at a Woolworth's diner counter when she moved her family to Dallas in the 1920s. The good old-fashioned Southern desserts were so popular with customers that her husband Henry convinced her to found The Bama Pie Company in 1927, and they began selling pies out of their house and on the road. Their son, Paul, opened a branch of the company in Tulsa in the '30s, and it grew into a larger operation from there.

According to the lore, the second-generation leader of Bama Companies (Paul) visited a McDonald's franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, in 1965. He wanted to find out if they'd be interested in his company's hand-held pies. As luck would have it, Ray Kroc, the first CEO of the growing fast food chain, happened to be there that day, and he asked Marshall to fry some fresh pies to sample. Coincidentally, McDonald's had already been pondering the addition of an apple pie thanks to franchisee Litton Cochran, whose wife developed an initial recipe for the dessert menu item. Bama Companies was the perfect match, and it started mass-producing the first "official" pies for the chain in 1968. These days, Bama not only produces over 2 million pies a day, but also millions of biscuits, hotcakes, and pizza crusts that are sold to companies like Pizza Hut and Nabisco. And, while McDonald's has largely switched to selling baked pies, the discerning consumer can still get fried McDonald's pies at a couple locations.