There couldn’t have been better validation for Nicola Elliott to launch her food business in 2016 than winning a gold award just a month after producing her first batch of Seville marmalade. “It gave me the confidence to go ahead if the marmalade was that good,” recalls Elliott, founder of Single Variety Co.
It went one better this year. At the same World Marmalade Awards, her Amalfi lemon marmalade went to the last round of tasting and then won double gold and the best accolade in an emotional moment for the English entrepreneur. “To do it at the scale we’re doing it says we’re doing everything right,” says Elliott.
In the early days of the one-fruit preserves startup, Elliott was making 25 jars at a time with six pans going at the same time and two part-time employees, as well as family and friends helping out.
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From selling its jam on a Balham market stall to owning its own production facility, having avoided mass supermarket listings to maintain independent quality, Single Variety Co now produces 5,000 jars a week and is set for a final annual turnover of £1.7m.
It is a far cry from seven years ago when Elliott received its first export order to Germany for 8,000 jars of raspberry preserves. “I said “yes” thinking I would be doing 25 jars at a time. Somehow we did it over six weeks. We didn’t make any money on the order but it was the turning point for us.”
The business lesson led Elliott to reluctantly outsource production for a few years until her husband – a “people person”, former personal trainer and tennis coach – joined the business and the couple moved to Bristol and spent £200,000 to set up their jam factory five years ago.
In her previous career as a fresh food product developer at the likes of Sainsbury’s, Elliott cut a frustrated figure in a role she admits was focused on costs and in which quality was not a priority. She left her career in supermarkets to focus on short shelf life product.
“When you mass produce, quality has to give way. I was determined to make quality what they aimed for,” she admits.
At the time, Elliott noted that premium jams had champagne added to strawberries or bay leaves to blackberries and “nobody was just making great tasting strawberry jam.”
Not everything went according to plan. Elliott once bought the second-hand jam kettle, for £12,000, instead of an electric kettle, which her husband still reminds the working mum of today.
Now with a staff of 12, it works directly with UK fruit farmers for its produce. These include seasonal limited edition jams such as traditional rhubarb from Yorkshire, grown in the dark and picked by candlelight.