The company called in receivers in 2004 and 250 people lost their jobs at the Langworthy production unit.
For more than a year it stood empty and silent, but today the former pie factory is once again a hive of activity.
In a twist fitting of any drama series, the building where meat and potato fillings were once stuffed into pastry crusts is now the foundation stone for Salford's transition into a major centre for television production.
The Pie Factory occupies a healthy slice of the 200 acre site which is now destined to become mediacity:uk.
It is a joint venture managed by site owner Peel Holdings and Andy and Janet Sumner, veterans of the north west TV production world who are best known as the owners of the Sumners post-production facility in Whitworth Street, Manchester.
Most importantly, it is already demonstrating that some of the brightest names in television are willing to work in Salford. Shameless creator Paul Abbott and Early Doors star John Henshaw are just two of the luminaries who have already passed through the doors.
The evidence of The Pie Factory's recent history is everywhere as Andy Sumner takes me on a tour of the immense 50,000 sq ft building. You can almost smell the ingredients as we tour the fridges and factory floor which are slowly being transformed into workshops and studios. Some of the old signs are still to be taken down and the extras waiting to be called in front of the cameras still sit in what was once the Freshbake Frozen Foods canteen.
But it could actually have been built with TV production in mind, with oodles of offices within close proximity to the cavernous open spaces which making television demands.
The green room where `the talent' waits between takes was once the Freshbake Frozen Foods men's locker room.
Angel Coulby
Make-up artist Sarah Campbell turns actress Angel Coulby into Small Time prison officer Rachel in what was the women's locker room. Carpenters Mark Yarwood and John Foster build sets for crime drama Cold Blood in what was once a cold storage room.
Continuing the tongue-in-cheek Pie Factory naming strategy, studio spaces with names like Manchester, Leeds and Huddersfield are linked by `the M62 corridor'. The Salford studio houses the spine-tinglingly accurate mortuary set used in Cold Blood. We pass through `Manchester' as actors in local comedian Tony Burgess' new BBC 3 prison sit-com, Small Time, rehearse their lines.
Upstairs is a bank of offices where Hat Trick producer Juliet Charlesworth is busy at work on what will become the second series of the glamorous fashion drama, Drop Dead Gorgeous.
She loves the space and convenience of working from a base which doesn't suffer from the congestion and crowds of London and thinks her colleagues in the television industry will also benefit when mediacity:uk is complete.
"The fact that it is easier to move around the north west will give the writers greater freedom to exploit more and more locations," she says.
Develop
Back in The Pie Factory's main office, the walls are lined with images showing how the entire site might develop between now and 2011, when Peel's main tenant, the BBC, are due to move in.
The BBC's plot has prominence on the Quays' waterfront. Complementary media businesses will be given space among the tower blocks, shops, restaurants and hotels. There is also space for Granada to relocate Coronation Street from Manchester city centre.
Ironically, the long term future for The Pie Factory itself is uncertain. It occupies a space which has already been earmarked for the towering residential blocks which will allow Peel to profit from the site.
For now, 'and perhaps five, or 10 or 20 years', Andy and Janet Sumner are confident The Pie Factory will be the first stage of yet another exciting period of regeneration in Greater Manchester.
"People talk about mediacity:uk in terms of producers and editors and lightning technicians but the opportunities here are far greater than that.
"This will be one of the largest construction sites in Europe for many years to come. The television industry is also about painters and carpenters and graphic designers and set builders and all of that should mean jobs for local people. We don't know how many people are going to come up here with the BBC but we know that there's going to be a shortfall.
"This is incredibly exciting and I am delighted to be a part of it. The Pie Factory is at the vanguard of what promises to be something very special."
For all the latest news from the world of television, check out Ian Wylie's blog, The Life of Wylie .
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