Pyman Pates was set up using a blend of years of skills and experience and a passion for producing quality food. Having worked in some of the Westcountry's finest restaurants, producer Thomas Pyman now enjoys exciting customers with his latest range of Pyman Pates.

Establish in August 2006 Pyman Pates uses only the finest, locally sourced, freerange, ingredients to produce traditional, handmade pates for customers throughout the Westcountry. We take great pride in creating new and exciting flavours combining both time-honoured and modern approaches to our recipes.

The crest I have chosen to use for Pyman Pates is the coat of Arms of the Pyman family. It was first matriculated in the 1880s for my great-great-great Grandfather George Pyman (1822-1900), who was born in Sandsend near Whitby, Yorkshire. He went to sea at the age of ten, was a Master Mariner by twenty-one and came to the new town of West Hartlepool at the age of twenty-nine. Before long he had built up a coal export business and fleet of merchant ships which became a significant element in the great British Merchant Navy of the late Victorian era. He took a leading part in many aspects of the town's life, becoming an alderman, a magistrate, the second Mayor and second Honorary Freeman of West Hartlepool, as well as working actively for many good causes.

The most striking feature of the coat of arms is the 'savage affrontee proper garlanded about the loins and temples holding in the dexter hand a scroll'. During the nineteenth century the College of Arms seems to have been the habit of granting savages to those with business in foreign part - hence also the crescent and the stars. That George Pyman mainly did his business in Europe and around the British coast seems to be taking this somewhat to excess. It has met with slightly ribald comment from the family over the years.

The Coat of Arms was brought up to date, in heraldic terms, for my Grandfather, General Sir Harold Pyman (1908-1972) Pete to his friends, who was a very successful regular soldier, becoming a Four Star General and a Knight Grand Cross of the British Empire - hence the collar of the GBE on the inside which takes precedence over the circlet of the KCB which is on the outside. From these hang the badges of both those orders.

The motto, Faithful and Firm is in Latin, in which language it has been transposed to Fortis et Fidelis, for no better reason than my Grandfather's thought that it sounded better.

It seems appropriate to use the Coat of Arms of these two very successful forbears in the setting up of my own business. I hope that I can achieve as much as they did.