Three, two, one - get eatin! Are you ready for the pie munching championships?

There will be both standard (meat and potato) and vegetarian (cheese and onion) options provided by event sponsor www.ultimatepie.co.uk, cooked under the auspices of Ultimate Pie’s chief executive Bill Kenyon.

Piemaster Tony Callaghan said: “Following a series of failings in recent years in which alleged ‘expert’ piemakers have variously, amongst other incompetencies, baked double-sized pies and sent competition pies to a divorce party in error, we have called upon the NASA of pie makers, Ultimate Pie, part of Ultimate Purveyors, to both ensure the correct pies arrive at the correct time, and that they are of consistent size and weight.”

Bill Kenyon, honorary Chief Gastronomer at this year’s championships, said: “We have been tested to the extreme, and we rose to that challenge by putting the first ever meat and potato pie in space. Nothing is beyond us.”

The official pies are a diameter of 12cm and a depth of 3.5cm, and a pie wall angle from base to top of between zero and 15 degrees.

Martin Appleton-Clare is the current World Champion, having scoffed his pie in 38.2 seconds at the 2015 Championships.