Cornish pasty company criticised by councillors after Devon council buys factory land

A Cornish pasty company looks to have reigned an age old row over the pastry item’s origins after its factory was bought out by Devon’s Torbay Council.

Torbay Council bought the factory land for £3m in order to boost its finances through investment. Councillors in Cornwall are said to be unhappy with the land-grab as they deem the pasty to be a purely Cornish invention, with the European Commission giving protected status to Cornish pasties in 2011, on the condition that they are prepared in Cornwall.

The company, Proper Cornish, has been making the pastry product since 1988, and was named Cornish Pasty Company Champion for 2018. Cornwall County Council’s Tim Dwelly, branded the deal “one of the strangest local government deals I have heard of”, adding he felt it was “hard to imagine Cornish pasties selling well if they are owned by Devon”.

Cornish Conservative councillor, Jim Flashman, said: “Are they going to bring in workers from Devon? It would be a problem if they were importing workers from different countries and if they were from Devon, they would have to call them Devon pasties or English pasties.”

Despite the EU recognition of Cornish pasties, there are some claims in Devon that the delicacy is in fact their own, and that it was ‘stolen’ by Cornwall.