Prima Bakeries is reporting record sales this year, with trade since April breaking all monthly records.

The Scorrier-based bakery has just recorded the three busiest ever weeks in its entire 40-year history, with one of those weeks 37% up on the same week in 2017.

Prima was purchased by the Norton family back in 2010. Since then, MD Mark Norton and his team have grown the business five-fold and the company now employs 82 staff, up from the 19 employed when he took the helm.

Prima’s pasties have been in the top three places in the World Pasty Championships in four of the past five years, a fact of which Norton is very proud.

He said: “We’ve made a lot of investment in getting the right people and the right equipment and creating the best recipes. So, when our Peppered Steak Pasty became world champion in 2015, I could see that all the investment was beginning to pay off.”

Strong growth in the bakery’s pasty sales both within and outside of Cornwall has continued since then – to the extent that it has recently introduced a new freezer unit capable of holding 80,000 pasties.

Norton added: “2018 has been a tremendous year for Cornwall. The summer weather has really helped business and at times we have struggled to keep up with demand but, by being so close to the majority of our customers, we can reach them quickly and adjust volumes when we need to.”

Prima Bakeries is planning a further 20% growth over the next 12 months and expects to create 10 to 15 full time equivalent new jobs.