Bama Companies, which makes McDonald’s pies, as founded in Dallas in 1927. | Photos courtesy of Bama Companies.
Paul Marshall’s unplanned, cold sales call to a local McDonald’s changed the history of his company.
The year was 1965. And Marshall was the owner and CEO of Bama Companies, a pie maker based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He made a cold call to a restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois, that was part of a fast-growing burger chain called McDonald’s. His pitch: Try our hand-held pies.
As it happened, the restaurant that day just happened to host the chain’s founder and CEO, Ray Kroc, along with some prospective franchisees. Kroc invited Marshall to fry his pies on the spot.
“He just knocked on the door and Ray Kroc was there,” Paula Marshall, Paul’s daughter and today the CEO and owner of Bama Companies, said in an interview.
That chance meeting would lead to a relationship between Bama and McDonald’s that has lasted for more than six decades. McDonald’s is leaning on that relationship this week with the reintroduction of its Fried Apple Pie, which was last on the company’s menu in 1992, when it was replaced with a baked version.
But here’s the thing: Kroc didn’t exactly fall in love with Paul’s recipe that day.
Bama Companies has facilities in the U.S., Europe and China.
From farmers to pie makers
Cornelia Alabama Marshall, or Bama, and her Husband Henry were struggling cotton farmers in West Texas in the early 20s. Bama Marshall packed up the couple’s seven children and moved to Dallas to start a new life. Henry Marshall planned to sell the farm and follow them later.
Bama Marshall got a job at a local Woolworth’s and started making sweet potato pies for the store’s counter diner, luring long lines of customers. Henry, who sold the farm and was fresh off a failed bid for governor, saw those lines and convinced his wife to quit the job and start making pies out of their home.
The Bama Pie Company was founded in 1927. Bama Marshall initially made the pies out of their home, using ingredients they bought from a local grocer, initially on credit. And Henry Marshall loaded them into a basket and went out to sell them.
It would ultimately become a family business. Paul Marshall, the second youngest child, left school in 1931 at the age of 16 to become a delivery driver. He later moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to start his own branch of the company along with his wife, Lilah.
Paul Marshall designed most of the company’s manufacturing equipment and worked with customers on the company’s products. Lilah Marshall handled much of the business functions and the company’s financial direction. They bought out the rest of the family’s interest in the business.
Most of the company’s early business was in grocery stores. “Every day he said, ‘you got to be a warrior. You’ve got to go out there and fight for your shelf space,’” Paula said of her father.
But Paul Marshall also saw the rise of drive-in restaurants to people eating in their cars and developed a hand-held pie for those customers and he started pushing the concept to restaurants.
The company had a growing client list, such as the drive-in chain Sandy’s. In 1965, bleary-eyed on a sales trip through the Midwest, Paul Marshall made a split-second decision to head to Chicago.
That is where he stopped at a McDonald’s without an appointment.
The McDonald’s miracle
McDonald’s, the largest restaurant chain on the planet, works with hundreds of companies that supply the food, paper, and ingredients that go into the chain’s Big Macs, French fries, dirty sodas, and Egg McMuffins.
McDonald’s considers them a crucial part of the business, enough that they’re called one key part, along with employees and franchisees, of a “three-legged stool” that makes the brand a success.
Some of these relationships date back decades, to the brand’s early days, and often through handshake deals between Kroc and someone else. One such deal was with a person by the name of Waddy Pratt, which led to what is now a 71-year relationship between McDonald’s and Coca-Cola.
All of which is to say that it was a good thing that Paul Marshall took that turn toward Chicago. Even if Kroc wasn’t fully convinced by what he tried that night. “He said, ‘It’s OK, but you need to make improvements,’” Paula Marshall said.
Kroc did want McDonald’s to start selling a dessert. Paul Marshall worked with franchisees to find the right recipe, with him and Lilah often making hand pies in their kitchen, which young Paula would try frequently. “I think my family had to put me on a diet pretty soon after that, as those things are delicious,” she said.
Official credit for the original recipe of McDonald’s Fried Apple Pie would go to Litton Cochran, an owner-operator of the chain in East Tennessee, whose wife worked to develop a hand-held pie of her own.
Bama Companies then began making them, officially becoming a McDonald’s supplier in 1968, when the Apple Pie first appeared on the chain’s menu.
Bama Companies has been working with McDonald’s ever since. It now has two plants in Tulsa that make 2.3 million pies a day. It also has two facilities in Europe, and two in China. It makes all the hand pies the chain sells, including promotional pies such as pumpkin in the fall or other flavors, like Strawberry and Crème or Blueberry & Crème.
“The McDonald’s miracle,” Paula Marshall said. “That’s what my dad called it.”
“McDonald’s has been an integral part of helping us grow,” she added. “We would not have been able to have the capital from banks and other people when you have McDonald’s with you, telling the banks the story and what we’re going to do and how important it is for us to grow with them. That’s part of why we love this company so much.”
Restaurant Business graphic using AI.
The Fried Apple Pie
McDonald’s pies were fried for decades, until worries about the healthfulness of fried pies led the chain to shift to a baked version in 1992. The baked version had a different recipe, with a lattice top that is unworkable in a fried pie.
In recent years, thanks to the power of social media, demand for the old version grew. Earlier this month, McDonald’s announced its plans to bring back that version this week, for a limited time, in conjunction with the United States 250th anniversary.
For the company, the shift could be a simple way to build strong sales for dessert product, with relatively little operational change, outside of the cooking process, that is.
The pie is expected to sell well. Customers who recall the fried apple pie have created online petitions and have recalled fondly on social media their love of the fried version, compared with the baked pie.
McDonald’s is also taking steps to make sure that it sells well. The company plans to erect a 35-foot version of the pie at a location on Tuesday in Joliet, Illinois. The pie is expected to remain on the menu through July 4.
Paula Marshall, for one, is excited about it. Bama Companies has been preparing for the moment for months, making the fried pies. “The fried pie has definitely created a lot of buzz and a lot of interest,” she said. “I think it’s going to be big. But we’re ready.”
Bama Marshall would be proud.
“She would be so happy,” Paula Marshall said. “This is the stuff dreams are made of. When a little cotton farmer and his family can grow, and we could be selling to one of the biggest and most iconic brands in the world, it’s a miracle.”
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