Cambridge Cluster

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Proper Cornish Food Company is part of the Cornish Cluster which makes food sourced whenever possible from local farmers in Cornwall and sells across Europe.  The pasties are made in Bodmin and command a premium price.  Each pasty is crimped by hand; expert crimpers can manage three or four per minute.  I wonder when someone will develop a machine to crimp a pasty?  I am sure someone has the skills in Cornwall.

The company was founded in 1988 by three Cornish men, Phil Ugdale and brothers, Dave and Chris Pauling.   The pasties are based on a Pauling family recipe.  Phil is now CEO and Chris is Operations Director.  No sign of Dave on the Proper People page of the site but there must have been romance at Proper in the past (and hopefully now and in the future) as Chris met Jane Flowerdue and married her.  Jane is Marketing Director.

Helen Dunne writes in Business Truth that Proper Cornish Food was started in 1988 and was not incorporated until 1999.  The early years were spent on the less than romantic quest to keep the suppliers happy whilst all the time expanding and investing to keep up with the demands of new regulations.  Four year spent funded by the goodwill and generosity of the creditors must have concentrated the mind.  It is one source of funding but it is not normally recommended to take creditors to an Individual Voluntary Arrangement.

The benefit will be that the founders probably kept more of the equity but if they had raised VC funding, brought in expertise, by now they could have sold out and be enjoying their pasties by the surf.

Proper Cornish Food had an interesting website and no pictures of a pastie on the home page, just a picture of the sea and a video of potatoe farming.  Another brochure site I hear Grant Dain, internet marketing Cambridge, say?

Proper Cornish Food is a member of The Cornish Pasty Association.  A Cornish pasty is crimped on the side and never on top.  More detail on the website where there are plenty of pictures of pasties!

PS. The picture of the pasties is from Zemanta and is from Pengenna Pasties of Bude; another business needing an updated website!  Must try the pasties when next in Cornwall.

I wonder if either of these companies supplies my cousin’s company, Doble Quality Foods, suppliers to the catering trade in Cornwall and South Devon?

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