Jamaican business celebrates 50 years of baking

JAMAICAN patty bakery Quick Food Products was one of the first to open in England and this weekend is celebrating its 50th birthday.

The Original Patty Company started in the 1960s when Oswald and Maureen Young immigrated to England. After setting up a successful small bakery in Manchester called Hot Bake, the family moved down to Wolverhampton to set up their Jamaican street food business in a larger bakery  and selling to food retailers around the country.

The bakery is known for its wide variety of patties. When the English settled in Jamaica in the 17th century, they brought with them the Cornish Pasty. This was infused with chillies, seasonings and curry spices that were in the country and eventually evolved into the Jamaican Patty.

Anthony Davis, managing director, bought the business off the Young family in 2013 as he had always been a fan of the patties from a young age. The opportunity came up when the Young family were making plans to emigrate to Canada.

He said: “They gave me the secret patty recipe so that I can maintain the great taste of the product and the heritage. The Young family didn’t want the heritage to change as they invested years of hard work into it.”

As well as celebrating their 50th year of baking for local people, the business will be launching their new packaging and brand name called ‘The Original Patty Company’ in an attempt to reach more people across the UK.

Anthony said: “We have chosen to rebrand the company from Quick Food Products to The Original Patty Company because we wanted to be more current and we wanted to celebrate the fact that we are one of the original patty companies in the UK.

“The hope for the future is having the product available across the country, all ages and all races.”

Despite the business going strong for 50 years, not much has changed, “The way we make patties and our business style has remained the same over the past 50 years,” Anthony said, “The company has just got bigger.”

However, in terms of taste over the decades, a lot has changed. Anthony said: “Tastes have changed massively over the past 50 years as the patty is essentially street food. People enjoy food nowadays that is quick and easy to simply warm up in the microwave and they are also more open to spicy tastes and everyone seems to enjoy flavour much more nowadays.”

The business, which now has 21 workers, will be celebrating their special anniversary at the bakery on Saturday. The bakery, which is based on Cross Street North in Wolverhampton, will play host to free entertainment for all the family including live music, face painting and a rodeo bull.

There will also be all 7 varieties of the patties available for people to try and enjoy as well as various Jamaican traditional dishes available too.