13th August 2009
Proper Pasty Company Celebrate 10 Year Anniversary And Partnership With Crantock Bakery.
Above: John Worrall, founder and Managing Director of Proper Pasty Company, outside the firm's shop in Pinstone Street, Sheffield. Photo: Proper Pasty Company.
YORKSHIRE BUSINESSMAN John Worrall swapped a 23 year career as a high-flying international sales director to open the North’s first Cornish pasty shop 10 years ago this month.
From their first shop in Sheffield, Proper Pasty Company has grown into a £3 million business with 10 shops, mobile food vans, an outside catering department and a catering training academy.
The company also wholesale Cornish pasties throughout the North and Midlands for Newquay producer Crantock Bakery.
“There was a lot of luck involved in the decision to start Proper Pasty,” said Managing Director John Worrall. “I was working for a big international company, away travelling a lot, and it was after I went through 13 airports in 12 days that I decided I’d had enough - I was shattered.
“I resigned from my job, and spent a year on garden leave. My girlfriend was from Cornwall and during that year we went down to see her family in St Ives a lot, and it was there, sitting on the quayside in St Ives that the idea to open a Cornish pasty shop came to me.”
Their first shop in the centre of Sheffield opened on 4th August 1999 with three employees. The concept took off immediately, with the shop taking over £230k in the first year of trading.
They opened a second Sheffield shop the following year, and started up their wholesale operation supplying Cornish pasties and bake off products to independent retailers throughout the Midlands, North and Lake District.
A further eight Proper Pasty shops followed in subsequent years: in Bakewell, Newcastle, Leeds, Bath and Yarm, plus a deli/diner and a factory shop in Sheffield. The company now employ 55 people.
And in June this year Proper Pasty moved to a new, purpose-built distribution centre and head office in Sheffield. The £1.1 million facility extends to 12,000 sq ft, and includes a vast 100 pallet freezer for secure wholesale storage.
Proper Pasty Company are also celebrating a second anniversary: a decade-long partnership with Cornwall’s Crantock Bakery, award-winning producers of the Cornish pasties sold by the firm.
John Worrall explains: “I’ve been around for a little while and have worked for some big companies, and after a while you get to recognise a good company when you see one.
“We’ve never had another supplier - we worked with the founders of Crantock Bakery, and now with Managing Director Nick Ringer, and we get on very well, we have very similar backgrounds.They’re just a really professional, well-run business - and they make great pasties.”
And in the future John has no plans to slow down: two more Proper Pasty shops are due to open this autumn in southern England.
For more information about the company, go to www.properpasty.co.uk
ENDS
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| John Worrall, founder and Managing Director of Proper Pasty Company, outside the firm's shop in Pinstone Street, Sheffield. Photo: Proper Pasty Company. |
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Notes to Editors
Crantock Bakery is an award-winning manufacturer of Cornish pasties and bake-off products. Founded in 1981, the company employs over 150 people at their purpose-built bakery near Newquay in Cornwall. Following a multi-million programme of investment the 27,000 sq ft premises last year produced over 19 million pasties - all hand-crimped in the traditional Cornish way.
The continually-expanding product range includes sausage rolls, hand-raised pies, scones and 30 different pasties. The company is highly adept at developing bespoke products for their customers, who range from independent bakers to foodservice suppliers and supermarkets throughout the UK and Europe.
Crantock Bakery is the 2008 British Bakery Manufacturer of the Year.
Media Contact - PR on behalf of Crantock Bakery.
Jim Michell at Barefoot Media.
Telephone: +44 (0)1208 895089
Email: jim@barefootmedia.co.uk |
