Upper crust pie-makers with links to Sheffield and Derbyshire win three national awards in first year of trading

Matthew Knowles and Matt Campbell, who cut their teeth working in the county’s award-winning pubs and hotels, sell their artisan produce under the name Derbyshire Pie & Co.

The business founders are delighted at their triple success in the British Pie Awards where they won gold for their steak and ale entry and bronze awards for vegan saag aloo and chicken, leek and tarragon offerings.

Operations director Matthew, 28, who lives in Old Tupton, said: “To get a gold and two bronzes in our first year and first time entering is good – it’s nice to get a bit of validation. We’re really happy.”

Buyers from Selfridges and Harrods, food writers, chefs, hotels and restaurant owners cast their votes and the award winners were announced in the pie capital, Melton Mowbray, last Friday.

Matthew said: “We’re only a small business and as we’re in quite an early stage we’re racing around trying to get new clients. so we didn’t have time to go down to Melton Mowbray, unfortunately.”

In the year since they set up their operation at the Welbeck estate on the edge of Derbyshire, Matthew and Matt have grown the workforce to seven employees, expanded their client base and increased their range of pies.

Derbyshire Pie & Co now produces around 2,000 savoury pies a week, supplying prestigious businesses such as Chatsworth and Highfield Hall farm shops, pubs, cafes, restaurants and stores.

Matthew said: “We started out with just steak and ale, and we've extended the range to include chicken leek and tarragon, homity pie which is a Derbyshire classic, a pork pie, a mince, onion and brown sauce pie and a vegan saag aloo pie. We want to introduce pasties into the range in the next month or so.”

The two chefs first worked together as 16 year olds in the kitchen at Fischers award-winning restaurant in Baslow Hall.

Matthew, a former pupil of Hasland’s Highfield Hall School, went on to work at East Lodge in Rowsley for executive head chef Simon Bradley, then Losehill House Hotel in the Hope Valley before becoming sous chef at the Devonshire Arms in Beeley.

Matt, 27, who is production director at Derbyshire Pie & Co, lives in Matlock and was educated at Silverdale High School in Sheffield. He worked at Fischers for four years and at one point was head chef at the Devonshire Arms in Baslow.

The desire to be their own bosses was fuelled in the summer of 2020 when Matthew and Matt returned to work in a Peak District pub after lockdown.

Matthew said: “We had wanted to do something different for a while, something for ourselves. We were looking at these places where we'd been and where we currently were. For a lot of the pubs there is quite a large chef shortage and we thought what can we do that is relevant to what we’ve done for the last ten years to fill the gap."