Asda innovation development chef Mark Richmond has created a way to remove the ‘air gap’ from his mince pies.

During baking, the pie will naturally create a space between the filling and the pastry, which can cause it to sink when it is eaten.

Richmond has cracked the problem by taste-testing more than 750 pies, and said that referring back to his grandmother’s baking techniques helped solve the problem.

“We’ve filled the pie with as much mincemeat as possible and used some clever technology to press the lid on to the pie which removes all the air – just like I would when making pies by hand with my granny.

“It was simply a case of reverting back to my grandma’s kitchen and how she used to close that gap.”

The pies were created at Premier Foods’ factory in Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Asda has created a video of the process from start to finish, showing the improved mince pies rolling off the production lines at an impressive rate of 720 a minute.