Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
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category spotlight while Utah's Butcher's Bunches Handcrafted Preserves opts for state-grown fruit and state-produced ingredients, such as Amano chocolate and whiskey from High West Distillery. International Appeal Simultaneously, the market is seeing interest in products and meth- ods originating outside the U.S. "Customers are more appreciative of the traditional French methods—a looser jam made with little or no pectin—and will try fruit varieties common in Europe, but less read- ily available in the U.S.," such as rosehip, uncommon plum cultivars like greengage and mirabelle, cassis, and currants, explains Hallman, who carries a selection of non-U.S. products, such as Bonne Maman and St. Dalfour. In fact, international products drive sales at Sahadi 's. CATEGORY VISIONARIES Blackberry Patch. In 1988 in Thomasville, Ga., a group of farmers founded Blackberry Patch, producing all-natural jams using old family recipes and local fruit. Eleven years later, entrepreneurs Randy Harvey and Harry T. Jones acquired the company and went on to extend the product line, redesign the packaging, and grow distribution. Today, Blackberry Patch turns out more than 50 Southern jams, fruit syrups, toppings, and salsas, starting with real fruit, mostly from the South, handmade in small batches. The products come in familiar flavors, such as a peach cobbler jam and peach pepper jelly, as well as more unusual offerings, like wild mayhaw jelly—named for the small sweet-tart berries in the crabapple family—and muscadine jelly, made with purple grapes of a large, thick-skinned variety. Some of the products are made using only fruit, sugar, and lemon juice, as with Old Fashioned Fig Preserves. A new line of preserves (in blueberry, blackberry, peach, and muscadine) dispenses with added sugar altogether, containing only 1 gram of sugar per serving, coming from the fruit. The company devotes a portion of its profits to various charities, spanning domestic and international aid efforts. blackberrypatch.com Butcher's Bunches Handcrafted Preserves. Life handed Liz Kennard Butcher lemons, and she made lemon marmalade. Faced with financial losses on the family farm due to growing competition, Butcher and her family were seeking a way to generate more income from their produce. Simultaneously, Butcher was trying to prepare healthier food for her son, Kenneth. So she combined homegrown and local fruits with other Utah-made products (such as Amano Artisan Chocolate) and an innovative bent, developing a line of whimsical and sugar-free preserves, most with 10 to 15 calories per tablespoon. Her creative flavors include Monkey Bizzzness (with Amano chocolate, orange juice, and bananas), Figarro (with figs, Limoncello, and herbes de Provence), and more. The latest offering, Ciao This, is a cross between a balsamic jam and jelly, featuring aged balsamic, dates, figs, and berries. butchersbunches.com Clearbrook Farms. After beginning with fruit fillings in 1924, this Ohio-based business began making preserves, using family recipes and fruit from highly regarded growing regions, such as red raspberries from Oregon. From the outset, the company has incorporated practices that seem on-trend today: identifying regional fruit sources in product names and on labels, and packaging its preserves in reusable French canning jars. Clearbrook Farms uses vacuum packing to avoid the need for preservatives in its products. Fruit is always the first ingredient, followed by pure cane sugar, fruit pectin, and citric acid (and no corn sweeteners or artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives). The company uses fresh-frozen fruit so it can produce preserves throughout the year with its choice of regional offerings. "If you only use fresh fruit, you have to make all of the preserves at once because you only have access to the fruit during crop. Once it's in the jar it will decay in flavor and color," says partner Dan Cohen. "Our goal is not to sell a flavor once or twice but every week to our most loyal customers." clearbrookfarms.com 106 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com categorySpotlight_Jams.indd 106 6/4/14 9:12 AM