For Bethlehem baker Patrick Lam, success is as much about luck as it is about the pies he makes for his business, Patrick's Pies café and bakery.

But watch the five times NZ Bakels Supreme Pie Awards winner choose a pie to be photographed and the true measure of his commitment to perfection is obvious.

It's in that eye for detail, that questioning of quality, that belief that only the very best is acceptable. That is what makes Patrick a winner.

Each time he's won a Supreme Award he can hardly believe luck has shone on him again and that his shop will be flooded with customers for weeks to come.

'Every year there are different judges, different groups judging your pie and you don't know what the judges like, chicken or beef or what their favourite is, so you go by luck,” says Patrick.

'It is really hard to make a perfect pie so I always say ‘cover the luck first and then you know what you're doing'. We need luck because you can't see inside the pie, only the outside. Only when the judge cuts it do you know if it looks good.”

That ‘luck' has in fact boosted his business to expansion. In May he plans to open a new café bakery at Tauranga Crossing Shopping Centre, which is part of The Lakes development.

Many will know of Patrick's refugee to master baker story; the journey from war-torn Cambodia to a Vietnamese refugee camp, virtually no formal education and then to find himself in New Zealand, a country where if you work hard, really hard, then fulfilling your dreams is possible.

'From the start I dreamed of success. I dreamed of being famous and successful,” says Patrick.

Starting here with absolutely nothing he set about fulfilling that dream to support his family and give back to the country that has given him so much. You'll never find an over-priced pie in his café bakery because he believes that would be unfair for his customers, the average is $4.60. He'd rather make a bit less money and provide them with a great pie at an affordable price.

Behind the success of this master baker is a life totally focused on achieving great results that will make his family proud of him.

He knows the sacrifice they all make through the long hours he works and the few breaks he takes. He used to start work at 4am every day. Now, with the help of a baker, he's eased up for a little while to a 6am start but he's still working past 5pm most days.

And when he gets home he still talks about pies. It's a seven days a week job and he doesn't regret a moment of it.

What keep him going is his family and his customers.

'My family gets involved. They help out in the shop and when we win they take that information back to their school and tell all their friends.

'At home, sometimes I talk about new flavours; how can we create a new flavour for the competition this year and sometimes my family gives me the ideas especially my daughter, Jessica, she's really good on the flavour. She is good with tastes. She always likes the gourmet fruit. She suggests what we should go with this year but we haven't decided yet, we are still talking about it.”

'My wife helps me a lot in the bakery, especially doing the pie competition. She's the one that organises us and helps keep us awake. We only have 24 hours to do the pie for the competition because we have to drive it up to Bakels in Auckland for judging. We have Tuesday to make the pie and Wednesday we drive to Bakels to give them the pie. Our time is very limited so it's hard work and no sleep for that day.

'My wife tastes and prepares some ingredients. We all work together, even my baker, my worker we all work so hard for that competition day. I really appreciate their help a lot; they put so much effort in and hard work.

'We are so focused in the end to choose the pies to go in the box, we are so nervous. The hardest decision to make is which ones are we going put into the box.”

So is it really luck that wins the award?

Patrick says he has no secrets to his pie making he simply uses good ingredients and makes beautiful pastry. He credits his NZ Bakels regional rep, Kevin Marshall with helping him with ideas and great support.

'We use Bakels margarine and pastry nuggets. The margarine melts faster than the nuggets so they lift the pastry up. When you get a layer of flour and a layer of fat, that fat melts and creates a steam pocket which pushes the pastry up. That's how it lifts the pastry.

'Most people do the same as what we are doing; it's just the way that you treat the pastry, you have to be careful in the process, it's really hard to make good pastry. You don't overmix your flour, the temperature of the water, the temperature of the fat. The hot weather water temperature is different from the cold weather water temperature, you have to adjust for it and see.

'And sometimes you can't get the perfect one all the time. Sometimes you think ‘oh it's a little bit soft today or a little bit hard today'. You will always get something that changes how you make it.

'Whoever the baker, they can make a pie but to do a perfect pie is really, really hard.”

Patrick's Pies make 500-600 pies a day per shop.

'The morning after winning it's 1200 and as you know we can't keep up. For the first four weeks afterwards we are really, really busy then another four weeks we are steady. For about eight weeks we are on a high from winning before it slows down a bit.”

Patrick says every Supreme win has taken him by surprise and because his customers know his pies he thinks the shop won't be busy the next day but he has been proven wrong every time. People come from all over the country to buy the pies.

'We have customers from Dunedin and Christchurch who buy the pies cold to take back to their families and friends. We're so happy to see it because it is about our success.”

A glimmer of pride lights Patrick's face then as he says his pies are now world famous elsewhere.

'To be honest our pies go to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, heaps to Australia. They buy from here and freeze them to take as a gift. People buy them as something special from New Zealand to give to friends as a gift. It's pretty good.”

It seems that is the measure of his success; a sincere, very hard working man (and his family), making a product from scratch, and sharing it with the world.

Entries openED for the 2017 NZ Bakels Supreme Pie Awards on May 1.