Our Story

Let me take you back a couple of years… after a late-night conversation over some Beer and BBQ in 2019, Ben (Hi!) & Jeremy, founders of local garment printers, Big Bear Apparel, were discussing food trucks. Having already tried the best around, Jeremy uttered those dangerous words, ‘we should start a food truck’.  

That late-night conversation turned into months of research, podcasts, e-books, meetings with other food truck owners and eventually a decision had to be made, what food did we want to sell?

Having grown up in the UK, Ben still had cravings for British food and in particular sausage rolls and Cornish pasties, so the decision kind of made itself and Union Jacks Pasty Shack was born.

Our mission from day one was to ensure our pasties were as good, or if possible, better than the best pasties in Cornwall. However, during taste tests in those early days we realized American taste buds were different to British ones, so we painstakingly adapted the traditional recipes to satisfy those differences and resumed the taste tests. They were an instant hit amongst all who tried them. 

Then came the next problem - how would we manage this new food truck and manage our current business? We quickly realized we couldn’t, so we turned to two adventurous friends of ours for help. Craig and Mona already ran their own successful local business but had some time spare to take on an extra challenge, so the dynamic twosome quickly became a fantastic foursome, and we were ready to hit the streets.

In early 2021, with the help of our friends at the Clovis Chamber of Commerce, we invited the local community to our opening day so they could learn about our pasties and try them for themselves. The event was a huge success, we even made it on the local news and in various local papers, and the very next day, Union Jacks Pasty Shack was launched and on the road. 

Craig manages our daily location schedule for lunch & dinner, the staff who run the truck and plans our event catering for local companies and charities. Mona manages our development kitchen and production team to ensure our food is made to a consistently high standard, using the finest local ingredients. Jeremy is the face we put in front of the cameras and the voice of Union Jacks, he’s also Mr Fix-It if anything technical goes wrong. Ben, well, I sign off the final products, run the website and along with Mona come up with new recipes. And lastly, Alysse, Jeremy’s wife, handles all our social media and makes us look good online. 

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To date, we’ve served thousands of customers young and old and received tremendous support and feedback, including from Charlotte, Jeremy's two year old pictured above. Recently, some local feedback spurred us on to launch a new dessert, Apple Crumble, and it’s gone down a storm so we're' excitedly developing more.

So, if you’re new to the world of Cornish Pasties, follow us on Facebook and Instagram to find out where we’ll be next and come see what you're missing. Or, if you’re already one of our loyal customers, thank you for your continued support, we love seeing you out there enjoying our food.

What’s next? Well, we want to bring our Pasties and Sausage Rolls to the streets and homes of the USA. So, if you’re sat reading this out there in this fantastic country of ours and it feels like it could be a fun new business to start where you live, get in touch, we’re looking for enthusiastic and hardworking self-starters across the USA to join the Union Jacks family.