Farmhouse Fare in Skipton won its third successive supreme championship at the annual Great Northern Pork Pie Competition, which ran alongside the 2012 Christmas primestock shows at Skipton Auction Mart.

The business has a bakery in Skipton and a retail shop in the town’s High Street and pulled off a championship hat-trick with its first prize stand pie.

And its first prize speciality pork and apple pie was awarded the reserve championship.

Janet Green, who runs the Skipton shop, was up at 5am on the morning of the competition to make and cook the pies to ensure they arrived in peak condition.

She said: “We have been using the same recipe for our pork pies since day one when we first established the business in 1975. To win the supreme championship for the third consecutive year is a major coup for us and true testimony to the quality of our pies.”

Entries were judged by a panel led by Keighley butcher Mike Ward, former president of the National Federation of Meat and Food Traders and secretary of the Great Yorkshire Pork Pie, Sausage & Products Competition.

Another new class for Christmas fruit cakes was well supported, with the title falling to farmer’s wife Helen Herd, of Saxelby Farm, Hebden. She said her cakes were made to a secret recipe handed down over many generations. Runner-up was Eileen Addyman, of Skipton.

There was a major charity element to the day, with pork pies, fruit cakes, Scotch eggs and fodder – all donated by participants - auctioned off with about £2,000 raised for good causes including Sue Ryder Manorlands Hospice in Oxenhope and Brooklands Community Special School in Skipton.