Food Industry Legends: Mark Christophers – bringing the Cornish back into pasty
At the end of last year, Mark Christophers and the other five founders of The West Cornwall Pasty Company sold their business for approximately £40m to Gresham Private Equity.
This unbridled success story for the humble pasty has seen Mark Christophers & co achieve food industry legend status in just ten years, after relaunching the company in 1998.
It has not only been a huge success for the individual entrepreneurs, but for the good old Cornish pasty, and the regional economy in general.
Mark Christophers is one of the people who is fighting for the Cornish pasty to achieve the EU’s Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status which will protect the product from poor imitators, and, most significantly, increase the economic prosperity of the Cornish pasty brand. Whether or not the status will be secured is up to the EU, and the bid is currently going through the initial assessment even though it has already been lodged for a lengthy time period.
Mark Christophers decided to help revamp his school friends’ ailing bakery, after spending time away from the Cornish coast in a private equity firm based in London.
By 2005, the company was selling over 6.5m pasties per year and had over 40 stores around the UK, including 14 in London catering for the city boys that Mark once rubbed shoulders with, along with mobile units for hungry punters at lucrative venues such as Lords cricket ground during the Ashes. The company was also ranked no 82 in the Fast Track 100 companies, with a sales growth of 62% per annum.
What makes Mark & co true heroes are their regional and family values. By refusing to open up outlets in their native county the gang avoided competing with other local businesses, and can instead help Cornish pasties contribute an estimated £150m to the Cornish economy (from research by Cornwall Taste of the West, 2005), as well as promote Cornwall to the wider UK population.
In an article for the BBC last year, Mark contemplated how the company’s core family values have helped, rather than hindered, their growth and prosperity.
He said: "Everyone says don't go into business with family or friends but it's just not true. We always work things out together starting from the basis that we are all such good friends and we don't want to do anything to jeopardise that. We also want to have fun and want people to enjoy working for us."
Whether the PGI application is successful will be decided by the EU, but with Cornish entrepreneurs such as Mark pumping their time and energy into the regional economy, the protection and expansion of traditional Cornish produce is, for the time-being, in safe hands.
See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/4360406.stm
