I’m not intending to write a food blog, but I felt the need to comment on these. I accept there are many more important things in the world to write about than the snack component of a Co-op meal deal, but notwithstanding that, these really are a complete waste of time. How can you possibly manage to have a product that is high in fat, high in saturates and quite high in salt to taste completely bland? There was no discernible taste to the pork, let alone a pleasant peppery or vibrant aftertaste.

But what puzzled me is how on earth this rubbish managed to win a bronze award at the British Pie Awards. Then it becomes clearer when I visit their web-site. I had assumed that Bronze would be third-placed. However, this would be wrong. In the 2019 awards, there is a section on pork pies and there is one gold winner, thirteen silver winners and twenty-five bronze winners. How many awards do they need to give out?

I can’t check the 2017 awards, when according to the label these pies stormed into bronze place, as the link on the British Pie Awards web-site is broken for that year. So, what the Co-op are saying about their pies is that three years ago, the pies managed to come in the top forty in the country. And, to be honest, I think they were lucky to manage that.