This year’s search for the World’s Fastest Crimper came to a nail-biting finish on Saturday when each of the four finalists, selected from heats run earlier in Cornish Pasty Week, went through their own two minutes under the spotlight at the Eden Project as they competed to find the 2020 champion.  

With nerves at full stretch as an almost palpable hush descended, and blazing sunshine making the Mediterranean biome feel almost tropical, they had their work cut out to keep their nimble fingers – and the pastry – under control, but no-one would have known it. All four admirably kept their cool right to the very last crimp. 

However, they didn’t make it easy for the judges. When it came to totting up the scores, Philip Bartlett of Proper Cornish and Jonathan Rosevear of Cornish Premier Pasties were tied in first place with 12 pasties each.  After a quick check of the rule book, the tie-break clause came into play and off went the judges to re-count every crimp on every pasty the pair had finished and add up the overall total number of crimps.

Jonathan clinched it with a jaw-dropping 267 crimps in total – that’s an average of 22.5 crimps per pasty.  Philip managed a magnificent 236, but it was just not quite enough to take the title this time round.

Director of Cornish Premier Pasties, Fiona Rick, was thrilled to see Jonathan win, after another of her crimpers had narrowly missed the title in 2019.  She said, “This is such a nerve-wracking thing for the crimpers to go through, they are under so much pressure because they are showcasing their profession to the world, but we’re all tremendously proud of Jonathan. Our crimpers are all trained to make a minimum of 22 crimps in each pasty as standard and, although we knew Jonathan is a fast crimper, we’re really glad his training came through and he didn’t try to cut this number down on the day, as this turned out to be the deciding factor that gave him the edge.“

The two other worthy finalists were Jackie Tonkin of Prima Bakeries and Katrina Jones of Portreath Bakery, who crimped 11 and 10 pasties respectively, to be just pipped at the post, in a very close contest.

Ainsley Cocks of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site (key supporters of the World’s fastest Crimper) was on hand to present Jonathan his award.