MOVE over Cornwall - a Cwmbran butcher is officially making the best pasties in Wales.

The steak pasties made by Edwards of Cwmbran were given the accolade in the All-Wales Product Evaluation Grand Final held Meat Promotion Wales last week.

Butcher Mike Edwards, 35, of New Street, Pontnewydd, has already won two Supreme Champion cups - for their pasties and their pork pies - and 14 medals for the quality of their other products.

He said: "I'm always quietly confident that we make a good product but it's always a nice surprise to win.

"The standard was very high. The judges mark out of 100 and most people's marks were in the high 90s. We had 99 out of 100 for this one."

Edwards of Cwmbran opened in 2000 but the butcher has been in the business since he was 17.

And he confessed to the Argus that the winning pasties were based on his grandmother's recipe. He said: "I took the basic recipe from my grandmother and changed it to appeal to all tastes.

"Everyone's grandmother does a bit of cooking and she always made nice pasties so I asked her to show me.

"It probably took me about a year of trying different recipes before I thought I'd got it right.

"Some people like spicy ones, some people don't - it's a matter of tweaking it until it's to everyone's liking.

"There's nothing too much that makes it different but the secret to making a good pasty is using good ingredients. We use stewed Scottish steak, onions, proper potatoes rather than mash, and our secret seasonings.

"We won an award last year for our steak and stilton pie, we've had a supreme champion for this year and next year we'll enter something completely different.

"I was over the moon when I won. We can now tell everybody that we make the best pasties in Wales."