Former footballer Danny Mills helps save West Cornwall Pasty Company

The next time a football crowd chants "Who ate all the pies?" the answer could well be Danny Mills. The former Leeds and England defender has emerged as one of the new owners of the West Cornwall Pasty Company – purveyor of 8m tongue-scorching savoury pastries every year.

The tough-tackling right-back turned BBC pundit is part of a consortium of wealthy individuals who bought the company out of administration, saving 274 jobs at 34 stores.

Mills, who retired as a player five years ago after a knee injury, is no stranger to the apron – he made the final of the 2012 series of Celebrity Masterchef. But his interest in the pasty business is as an investor.

Mills, who also has interests in commercial and residential property, is a partner in the private equity firm Enact, alongside a former HSBC banker, a senior partner at the accounting firm Deloitte and a retail entrepreneur who founded the Republic fashion chain.

Mills and his financial partners stepped in to rescue the ailing pasty chain when the firm was unable to pay its rent bills. Yesterday, it went into administration – and was swiftly bought by Mills's new team.

The former footballer, once red-carded for kicking a ball at an injured player, said: "It's a fantastic name and a fantastic brand and we are saving jobs and taking the company to the next level. Pasties are a must-have item on the British menu around the UK that everybody knows and loves."

David Chubb, joint administrator for West Cornwall Pasty Co, said the company had run out of alternative options after facing severe difficulties in meeting its financial obligations.

He said the sale to Enact, a £7.5m private equity fund was the best outcome for the business and would ensure the company had a more secure future.

However, 31 stores will close, resulting in 92 redundancies.

Mills said the new owners were looking at expanding the group's menu, launching a new marketing campaign and possibly opening more stores.

He added that Enact had considered hundreds of investment opportunities since it launched in December and that it wanted to back small- and medium-sized businesses that were struggling to get funding from banks or had been mismanaged.

Retiring footballers used to go into the pub business, but modern footballers prefer the restaurant trade. Mills's new venture puts him in the same league as a whole team of current and former England players who have moved into the food business, from Rio Ferdinand, who owns the Manchester eaterie Rosso, to Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs, who recently opened Cafe Football in the Westfield shopping centre next to the Olympic stadium. The Wolves legend Steve Bull owns Bravaccio in Wolverhampton.

The West Cornwall Pasty Company – which despite its name is based in Buckinghamshire – was founded by the serial entrepreneur Ken Cocking, together with his two sons, in 1998. They opened their first store in Chippenham, Wiltshire, and the firm was intially backed by a number of family friends.

In 2007, the business was sold to a management buyout backed by the private equity firm Gresham for £40m and claimed to have sold its 50 millionth pasty two years later. Gresham aimed to turn the pasty company that once proudly used the slogan "From Cornish yokels to pasty moguls" into a fastfood chain that could challenge the burger giants.

The company still makes all its pasties in Penryn, near Falmouth in Cornwall, and has expanded from the classic pasty – originally a meal in a pastry case for Cornish tin miners – to a range of more exotic flavours including lamb and minted peas to chicken and spicy chorizo.

Mills declined to name his favourite from the menu. "All of them are my favourite," he said diplomatically.

Chris Cormack, investment director for Enact, blamed the firm's financial difficulties on the so-called pasty tax introduced bythe chancellor, George Osborne in 2012 under which VAT was slapped on to hot takeaway food.

Pasties got a partial reprieve after marches in Cornwall led to a government U-turn under which food left to cool naturally was excluded. But firms such as West Cornwall, which keep their food hot, still have to pay.

Last year's hot summer was also bad news for hot food takeaways.

Cormack said: "The business has struggled to cope with the effects of the pasty tax and a number of underperforming outlets."

But he added: "Fundamentally, West Cornwall Pasty Company is a market-leading brand loved by millions of customers and we are delighted this transaction takes the brand and business forward."

West Cornwall Pasty Company, known as the "posh man's Greggs", is the first buyout for Enact.

Cormack said it was in advanced discussions with other businesses on deals it hopes to announce soon.

Recipe for success

Danny Mills became a Premier League regular in an era when a professional contract guaranteed entry to the millionaires club.

In a 13-year playing career that started in 1995, his clubs included Charlton Athletic, Leeds United and Manchester City.

Despite ahis tough-tackling reputation, Mills's defensive skills were highly rated enough by Sven Goran-Eriksson to make the Norwich-born defender his first-choice right back at the 2002 World Cup. Mills was the cause of a rare Eriksson meltdown in the opening game, when an error led to a Sweden equaliser and a flash of Scandinavian exasperation from the England bench.

After retiring in 2008, Mills, has proven to be become one of the game's most outspoken ex-professionals as a TV pundit. Last year, he was appointed to an eight-man Football Association commission tasked with improving the fortunes of the national team - to the surprise of some observers.

Mills's direct speaking style was deployed soon after, when he responded to criticism of the lack of female representation on the panel: "People will argue that there was no woman named but do we have - at the moment - enough women with enough experience at this level because we are talking about the England senior team?" Dan Milmo