Proper Pasty Company 10th Birthday!

2009 has been a huge year for us, not only have we relocated to brand new premises, opened 3 new outlets and started an Academy for Retailing excellence… it’s also our 10th Birthday!

Life began 10 years ago in August 1999, when our founder John Worrall took the plunge to leave corporate life and bring a piece of Cornwall to Sheffield…Pinstone Street to be precise and since then the Proper Pasty Empire has thrived and expanded across the UK, with our most remote locations established in Bath and Newcastle it is our aim to fill in the gap between.  Life has changed since those unchartered days in the 1990′s, since opening what is now our flagship shop in the heart of Sheffield.

Over the years we have developed many new Cornish Pasty retailing concepts along the way serving the very best Cornish wares to the general public, workers in the workplace and students in Universities.  Our mission is to take the Cornish Pasty to every corner of the UK over the next 10 years…just watch us!

Our fleet of Catering Vans has now grown to 6 vehicles, the very best in mobile catering technology delivering Cornish Pasties and a whole variety of hot & cold snacks to the remote workplace in and around South Yorkshire.  By delivering consistent quality in food and a reliable daily service which serves customers at the same time each day, we have been able to grow the Proper brand beyond the High Street.

A great product range, customer focused growth and friendly staff have been the basis to our ten year growth so far, our plans for 2010 through to 2020 are much the same, we will continue to speculate, innovate and titivate to establish the Proper Pasty brand as the leading Cornish Pasty retailer in the UK!

Cornish News: St Pirans Day – 5th March

St Piran is the Patron Saint of Tin Miners and is also generally acknowledged as the National Saint for Cornwall, the Cornish flag which is a white cross on a black background is the St Pirans flag.

Legend: St. Piran lit a fire on his black hearthstone, which was evidently a slab of tin-bearing ore. The heat caused smelting to take place and tin rose to the top in the form of a white cross (thus the image on the flag).

Someone who is as ‘drunk as a Perraner’ is a description of a merry maker who has consumed large amounts of alcohol whilst celebrating St. Pirans Day, a traditional Cornish celebration adopted by the tin miners of Cornwall representing an official local holiday.  The only real tradition associated with this celebration is the consumption of large amounts of alcohol and food, mainly locally produced Cornish Pasties in their thousands!

On occassion employers have treated this as an official bank holiday in acknowledgement and support of the historic date. The 6th of March is known to be another unofficial holiday due to the amount of sore heads that are being nursed after the merriment!

Further afield in the USA, St Pirans day is celebrated in similar style but with a twist, “Tossing the Pasty” is a St Pirans Day Pastie Olympics Event which involves a Cornish Pasty being flung at a St. Pirans Flag which is usually sited some 200 meters away on the ground, nearest the flag wins and the lucky local dogs get to enjoy the remaining crumbs! The best two out of three pastie tosses gets the trophy.

St Piran’s Day started as one of the many tinners’ holidays observed by the tin miners of Cornwall. Other miners’ holidays of a similar nature include Picrous Day and Chewidden Thursday. There is little description of specific traditions associated with this day. However, many observers noted the large consumption of alcohol and food during ‘Perrantide’. The day following the St Piran’s Day was known by many as ‘Mazey Day’, a term which has now been adopted by the revived Golowan festival in Penzance. The phrase ‘drunk as a perraner’ was used in 19th century Cornwall to describe people who had consumed large quantities of alcohol.

a wikipedia extract

Cornish Surf – Perranporth

Perranporth is known to be the most southerly of the north coast surfing areas, not as popular as the Newquay coastal areas, but with the correct conditions offer a great surf experience.  Located approximately 10 miles to the south of Newquay this location offers some of the most beautiful surfing scenery along the south west shorelines.  The 3 mile long beach, which is fully lifeguarded between May to September, offers a wide variety of waves making it sutable for all class of surfer.  A resume of surfing conditions is offered below:-

Perran Bay a short walk will take you there, so it naturally has fewer surfers
Perranporth has a 3 mile long sandy beach, offering a whole range of surf for all abilities
Penhale Corner you can surf here, just as long as the army are not using the firing range nearby!
Trevaunace Cove faces north, draws crowds when the conditions are right
Chapel Porth tiny beach, only for experts
Porthtowan Beach you can get good tubing waves here
Portreath big swells round the harbour walls for the experts

Genuine Cornish

The Cornish Pasty Associations application for the PGI has been very widely supported by the general public and by professional bodies, a recent extract from the CPA website details the following stats relating to the widening support:-

An omnibus survey conducted on September 2007 with over 1,000 participants found that:

• The majority of participants agreed with the Cornish Pasty Association’s PGI application, with considerable support (79%) of the proposal to protect the term ‘Cornish Pasty’.

• It was agreed by over half of those interviewed (62%) that pasties described as Cornish but that are not actually Cornish are deceiving consumers about their origin.

• 64% of all participants stated that if they saw a food product on sale in the supermarket described as being Cornish, they would expect it to be made in Cornwall.

More information about the CPA, its members and the history of the Cornish Pasty is available at www.cornishpastyassociation.co.uk