A FAMILY run village shop has seen off hundreds of competitors to reach the final of a prestigious competition.

Jason Hudson and his wife Lisa are the proud owners of The Bells Inn, in Almeley, where they also live with their children Sophie and Matthew.

After buying the pub and restaurant eight-and-a-half years ago they ditched the meals and replaced it with a village shop and delicatessen, allowing visitors to have a pint of ale while buying their groceries.

After three years of trade their enterprise has became so well known they were nominated for the BBC Food and Farming Awards in the 'You and Yours' local retailer category, seeing off 800 entries to make the final three.

"I can't believe it," said Jason.

"The judges visited about a month ago and had a look at the shop. They were quite interested in the history of the place and how it started, what was important to us and the use of local farmers and suppliers."

The shop sells a range of goods from homemade products including quiches and brownies to basic necessities.

They are open from 9am until midnight every day of the week.

Residents of Almeley are so appreciative of the village shop that a band of volunteers help to run it one day a week to give the owners a day off work.

Jason added: "Some of the men of the village say they are just popping down the shop for a pint of milk and have a couple of pints of beer too.

"We have people in the shop at 2.30am buying sausages and bacon for their breakfast. There is a group of volunteers on a Wednesday who give up the day to work for us and take it in turns so we can have a day off and go out with the children.

"It shows they appreciate what we're doing as there hadn't been a shop here for over 10 years."

Renowned chef Roopa Gulati was one of the judges who visited the pub last month and was so impressed with Lisa's homemade food she asked if her quiche recipe could be featured in the BBC Good Food magazine.

"We used to have a restaurant which wasn't busy enough so we thought what can we do to make our business more local to the community," said Jason.

"There is only 200 people in Almeley so we haven't got a lot of people to play with. As a pub business we were always going to struggle so we had to diversify into a shop which is also helping the village."

"We have also made the pub more accessible to the local community as some people wouldn't come into the pub before but will come into our shop."

The couple will find out if they have won the award at a glitzy prize ceremony in Bristol on April 28.