Crantock Bakery has announced it has been doing a roaring trade on Cornish pasties during the recession, with sales up 30% on last year.

With turnover currently at £15 million, chairman and managing director Nick Ringer said the company has had its best year.
“We’ve never been busier,” he added.

The Indian Queens-based firm’s turnover has more than quadrupled since the business was bought by the management team in 2002 for £6 million, and it has taken on 70 full time staff in that time, boosting its total to 150 employees.

In 2007, a £2m investment in production machinery and freezer storage was completed at its factory, increasing capacity to the enable production of up to 150,000 pasties a day.

“You can’t stand still,” said Ringer. “You have to develop new products, new ways of selling and explore new markets. In the last year we have created a new position for a new product development manager, whose sole focus is to create new lines and refine our existing product range.”

Crantock supplies to independent pasty shops and bakeries, pasty chain retailers such as Cornish Bakehouse and the Oggy Oggy Pasty Company, and to Morrisons and Asda stores nationwide.