Bakers, pastry cooks, apprentices and even butchers and chefs are being invited to enter their sausage rolls, pies and pasties in Australia’s longest running pie competition: The Official Great Aussie Pie Competition.

In 2024 the competition will take place at Fine Food Australia, which will be held from September 2-5 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

In 2023 Paradise Bakehouse took home the trophy for Best Plain Meat Pie, while Country Cob Co placed second. The Victorian bakery also took home silver for their Mince Chunky Pie. Rolling Pin Pies & Cake were awarded the Gourmet Pie title, and the Plain Sausage Roll trophy went to Jack’s Bakery from Halls Head in WA. South Australian bakery Banana Boogie took home the trophy for the newly created Traditional Pastie.

Banana Boogie owner Jason Spencer told Baking Business that competition baking is one of his loves.

“It shows to our customers that we go out of our way to continually improve and produce the best bakery products you can find,” he said.

“Having these high standards can be stressful at times, but when the bakers see all the amazing reviews we get from our customers, it makes it worthwhile.

“We are going to have to put in a mighty effort to recreate our success [from 2023]. We will give it our best shot.”

In 2023 the judging panel looked at more than 1500 pies, sausage rolls and pasties from around Australia.

Registrations for the 2024 competition will be open from July 15 until August 19, and can be done on The Official Great Aussie Pie Competition website.