Hell Pizza Encourages You to Try Vegetarian Twist on Kiwi Dish with Intriguing To-Meat-O Sauce

In Hell’s latest campaign, the pizza chain took the classic Kiwi steak and cheese pie and turned it into a pizza. The twist? It’s vegetarian. Made with Fable’s infamous plant-based steak, as well as the traditional gravy, cheddar, mozzarella and flaky puff pastry. So, how do you launch a steak and cheese pie pizza that doesn’t include any steak at all?

If there’s one thing every pie needs, it’s sauce.

So, Special Wellington – in conjunction with Special PR – promoted the launch of the new meatless pie pizza by creating the perfect condiment. ‘To-meat-o Sauce’, a tomato sauce made with blood. 

It’s so wrong but, clearly, so right. With curiosity getting the better of Kiwi, the new pizza and blood bagged sauce sold out in just three weeks. But it was something of a Trojan sauce, as each bag only contained 0.5ml of blood (less than a slice of pepperoni). Despite that, 70% of Kiwi who wanted to try the pizza were in fact meat-eaters. And after trying the vegetarian steak and cheese pizza 30% said they’d swap meat for plant-based options in future.

It’s no surprise that so many people were curious to try the ‘To-meat-o Sauce’ - the campaign received over 2.4 million engagements, meaning it reached almost half of the New Zealand population. 

“Since Hell has taken all the animals out of the pie, we decided to put them all in the sauce instead. Us Kiwi are curious folk, which is why we aren’t surprised that the pizza sold out in only three weeks. Some might even call us blood thirsty!” said Special Wellington ECD Mark Forgan.

The new topping was served in a blood bag and, according to its ingredients, included beef and deer blood and “some sheep maybe? Honestly, we lost track of what went in the blender.” 

Hell has never been afraid of ‘stirring the pot’ and Special was the perfect partner in crime, according to Hell Pizza marketing manager, Siang Tay. 

“It was a bloody good idea from Special to stop any of our carnivorous friends getting their nose out of joint at the thought of plant-based steak.”

In a full circle moment for Special Wellington ECD Mark Forgan, who was one of the brand’s first delivery drivers 25 years ago, claims that “Hell Pizza is still the best job I ever had – it was so good to be back in the driver’s seat with this campaign.”

The ‘So wrong, but so right’ campaign launched in November 2022 across OOH, radio and social, promoting the new Steak & Cheese Pie Pizza and accompanying ‘To-meat-o Sauce’.