A Cornish pasty seller in one of Britain’s most picturesque villages has complained that whingeing locals are stopping her from charging £13.50 per pasty.
Terri Munday runs the Mousehole Deli and Kitchen near Penzance, Cornwall, where it costs £10 to have a pasty to eat in.
She had planned to increase her prices to £13.50 this month – but told MailOnline she was prevented by ‘abusive’ customers moaning about money.
Fellow Cornish pasty sellers a few miles down the road charge as little as £4.60 for similarly sized pasties and blasted Terri for flogging her food at such ‘extortionate’ prices.
However, Terri defended her prices and said the £10 tag for the pasties made by local mother and son duo Ann and Fergus was actually evidence of her ‘trying to keep the costs down’ as she also had to provide and wash the plates she serves them on.
She told MailOnline: ‘As if life is not hard enough. Our pasty prices have absolutely nothing to do with making money off tourists or second home owners.
‘It should be 13.50 to make [the] 70 per cent margin we need to run a business. This is us trying to keep the costs down.
‘My team have had abuse on the phone and over the counter about prices, which has been totally heartbreaking for us and them, particularly in April when prices are due to increase.
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Terri and Caleb Munday (pictured), who run the Mousehole Deli and Kitchen, charge £10 for a pasty. Terri (right) complained to MailOnline that locals whining about her high prices were stopping her from raising the price of a pasty to £13.50
Currently, Terri sells pasties in her shop for £10 to eat in and £6.50 to take away. Pictured: Pasties in her shop last week. Pork pies were also on sale for as much as £12.50
‘Now I am going to have to run at a loss and delay this process.’
Terri’s deli sits in the heart of Mousehole, a beautiful village long considered to be Britain’s second home capital.
Last week, MailOnline revealed that Cornwall County Council was urging locals to fight back against out-of-towners turning their stunning haven into a ghost town.
Yet this week the talk of the town has been Terri’s £10 pasties.
Locals said the pasties were delicious but even the local councillor who had lived in Mousehole for almost 20 years admitted she would never pay a tenner for them.
Thalia Marrington, 50, the deputy leader of the Cornwall County Council Liberal Democrats and a Mousehole villager for 18 years, said she expected pasties to cost ‘a little more’ in Mousehole.
She said: ‘I know they are expensive. They are nice. It’s what I expect in Mousehole. You do pay a bit more.
‘They do try, but we live in a goldfish bowl. They have to make it out to [the] season.
Terri’s Mousehole Deli and Kitchen (pictured) overlooks a stunning harbour and sells pasties for up to £10 each
Terri was perplexed as to why anyone wouldn’t fork out £10 to pay for this Cornish pasty accompanied with salad
Pictured: The stunning view outside the expensive delicatessen in the Cornish village of Mousehole
Mousehole (pictured last week) is thought to be the second home capital of Britain
‘I wouldn’t pay £10 for a pasty but I would spend £6.50 for an Ann’s pasty and eat out.’
Former police officer Elaine Bawden, 66, who grew up in Mousehole, admitted the pasty price at Terri’s shop was expensive but understandable.
She said: ‘The delicatessen in the village [is] aimed more at the holiday trade rather than residents.
‘Yes they are more expensive but that’s the case wherever you purchase quality goods. You wouldn’t buy your weekly shop there!’
Elaine’s friend Neil Brockman, 61, also grew up in the village and said the pasties were his favourite.
When other pasty sellers in neighbouring villages within five miles of Mousehole heard about the £10 pasties, they were shocked.
Pasty maker Sarah Shaw owns the Cornish Hen Deli in Penzance and charges £4.60 for a traditional pasty.
Elaine Bawden, 66, (pictured) grew up in Mousehole and said it made sense that Terri charged high prices because the pasties were high quality
Neil Brockman, 61, (pictured) was born in Mousehole and lived there for 45 years. He said the pasties sold at Terri’s deli were his favourite
Local Lib Dem councillor Thalia Marrington, 50, (pictured) said she wouldn’t pay £10 for the pasties but was happy to give £6.50 for a takeaway
When she heard about Terri’s prices in Mousehole, she said they were even more expensive than London prices.
Sarah said: ‘Are you kidding me?
‘I don’t know how they can justify £10 for a pasty. They must be gold-plated.
‘They can’t be making them themselves. We make everything from scratch.
‘The beef is from the local butcher, we use Cornish butter.
‘But good luck to them. I can’t quite believe that.’
Ian Lavender, 70, runs Lavenders Deli Bakery in Penzance with his wife and son.
He charges £4.70 for a pasty, although he admitted he increased the prices this week from £4.20 because of rising costs.
Ian Lavender, 70, (pictured) runs Lavenders Deli Bakery in Penzance with his wife and son
He charges £4.70 for a pasty, although he admitted he increased the prices this week from £4.20 because of rising costs
At Lavenders even a giant steak pasty was only £6.90, more than £3 cheaper than a £10 Mousehole Deli and Kitchen pasty to eat in
When he heard Terri’s deli in Mousehole was charging £10 for a pasty and had hoped to increase to £13.50, he said: ‘I’m going to move to Mousehole!’
Ian added: ‘That’s extortionate. We have always tried to keep our prices at a reasonable rate because the area is not wealthy.
‘We have to try keep the prices within people’s budgets.’
Yet not all pasty sellers were surprised. Hellys Bistro in Penzance stocks pasties from Lavenders and sells them for £7.
Tom Murray, manager at Loafs Bakery in Penzance, pauses before taking a bite of one of the bakery’s pasties
The Cornish store charges £4.85 for a pasty, each of which is around 450g in weight
Linda Jeha (pictured) is the owner of Aunty May’s in Newlyn, where she sells pasties £4.95
Pictured: A fresh batch of Aunty May’s Cornish pasties are readied to be sold to the public
Pictured: Elle Toms at Warrens bakery in Newlyn, a few minutes drive from Mousehole
Warrens is one of the oldest pasty chains in Cornwall and boasts loyal customers across the region
The shop charges just £4.75 for a medium traditional steak pasty (pictured this week)
Assistant head chef Ethan Willie, 23, said he wasn’t shocked because of Mousehole being a tourism hotspot, which he suggested made everything naturally more expensive.
He explained: ‘With the summer coming, Mousehole is one of the more touristy destinations.’
MailOnline analysis of shops selling pasties between Mousehole and Penzance at the moment found the Mousehole Deli and Kitchen sold the most expensive ones at £10.
The cheapest were sold at Rowe’s Cornish Bakers in Penzance for £4.30, where you could also buy two for £7.30, coming out at an average of £3.70 per pasty.
Pictured: Pasty shop worker Lee Parsons at the Cornish Hen Deli in Penzance, which sells traditional pasties for £4.60 each
Owner Sarah Shaw couldn’t believe her ears when MailOnline revealed one of her rivals was selling psaties for a tenner
She said: ‘Are you kidding me? I don’t know how they can justify £10 for a pasty. They must be gold-plated’
Even so, Terri was horrified that people might view her shop in a negative light and strongly defended her staff and her business style.
She said: ‘[£10 is] just the price to make less than industry standard margin.
‘They are hand made by Ann and her son Fergus, not [a] fake chain-baked product you might be used to!
‘They are massive and weight approximately 475g with steak from Fergus’s farm.
‘Ann and Fergus sell them to us for £3.15.
‘Then you have to add on pasty tax for a ”reheated baked good” unless it’s straight out of the oven, which is what we try to do as we bake them on site. So we should sell them for £7 if reheated!
‘Then I have to pay £12.45 per hour for a chef to bake them plus extortionate electricity, equipment, maintenance [and] parchment.
‘Then we have to pay someone the same hourly rate to sell it, plus equipment to reheat, storage, bags, cleaning etc.
‘Then to have [pasties] in I have to buy plates, have a premises, hire more staff to serve you, and make it into a restaurant item.
‘Seriously, you think that’s not ok for £10?’
She added: ‘Locals get a discount and monthly deals so we look after [everyone], not that we can afford to but to us, community is everything.
‘We employee 32 local staff, have eight apprenticeships and need to stay open all year to service this.
‘We embrace tourism in Cornwall. That brings in £2billion to the county each year and supports over 35,000 jobs.
‘It’s hard enough to run a small restaurant in this climate with national living wage, supermarkets monopolising retail items so it becomes cheaper to shop there than with our suppliers [and dealing with] the extra £15k increase in national insurance we as a business have to try and find.’