Campaign for pasty museum

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Malcolm Ball
Malcolm Ball

A Cornish businessman has launched a campaign to create the UK’s first ever pasty museum, at a food-based visitor attraction that is being planned near St Austell.

Malcolm Ball, the chief executive of WMC Retail Partners plc, the company behind the transformation of the historic Old Spitalfields Market in London, is overseeing the creation of the new 13,000 sq ft attraction that is designed to celebrate the very best in Cornish food and drink produce.

He said: “I started to research whether there are any visitor attractions focussing on our famous pasty and was absolutely staggered to find out that there wasn’t one in the UK, let alone Cornwall.

“From what I can discover, there’s only one pasty museum in the world which is located in Mexico, so I’m launching this campaign to call on our county’s food producers to help me establish not only a museum that tells the story of how they were created, but also to allow the public to watch them being made and then try them whilst still mouth-wateringly fresh from the oven.

“The pasty is synonymous with our region and while they do exist in other forms throughout the length and breadth of the UK, most people view Cornwall as the ‘pasty capital’ – so it’s only right that we mark this with the creation of a museum right here in St Austell.”

Explaining his plans for a wider food-based attraction, at the Par Stadium Retail Park, Ball added: “We’re hoping to offer a mix of exciting exhibits – centred around our plans for the pasty museum, including a farm shop and deli that focuses solely on retailing affordable Cornish food and drink produce and also a restaurant where the very same produce is freshly prepared for the customers to enjoy in a fabulous and relaxing environment.”

Ball says he already has “one of the region’s most renowned seafood specialists” on board and would like to hear from other interested parties.

He can be contacted via email at malcolmball@wmc-retail.com.