by Real Business - Thursday, 30th August 2007

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Traditionally the preserve of grannies and the Women’s Institute, jam doesn’t set many pulses racing in food circles these days. But that’s about to change. Fraser Doherty, an 18-year-old jam maker from Edinburgh, is about to bring a frisson to the conserves aisle.

Doherty started out making his range of “Doherty’s” jams at the tender age of 14. Following his grandmother’s secret recipes, he experimented with an assortment of unusual flavours, from kiwi fruit to lemon marmalade. Two years later, he was churning out 1,000 jars a week from his parent’s kitchen, spending 16 hours a day slaving over a stove. Initially these were sold to neighbours and church fairs, and later farmer’s markets and delis. At 16, he left school to concentrate on growing the business, which was turning over £80,000 a year.

But extensive market research brought bad news. “Jam sales are in decline, mainly because it’s so unhealthy,” says Doherty. “Traditional jam is up to 70 per cent sugar, or sweeteners, and nobody wants to put that in their bodies.”

The only way to bring about a jam renaissance was to reinvent the product completely, and bring jam’s tired image, and its heart-stopping ingredients, up to date. Doherty ditched the refined sugars and additives. He began using grape juice to sweeten his jam instead.

This brought the sugar content down, which gave the jam a low GI (glycaemic index), a stalwart of modern diets. With three out of five people overweight or obese, low-sugar products are becoming more and more popular. And SuperJam is safe for sufferers of diabetes, which affects 3.6 per cent of the population – a percentage that is set to double by 2010.

Most importantly, he introduced a “superfruit” into each of his recipes. Superfruits have high levels of antioxidants and are more nutrient-rich than other fruits. This is the unique twist that sets his jams apart from other commercially available conserves.

The new range, “SuperJam”, consists of three flavours: cranberry & raspberry; rhubarb & ginger; and blueberry & blackcurrant. Superfruits have been a hot topic in healthy living magazines for the past five years, and it’s a trend that’s here to stay.

But health-conscious punters are just the tip of the iceberg. The market for SuperJam is massive. Kids will love the bright packaging and their parents will want to feed them a healthier option. Doherty says he’s even got pensioners covered. “The older generation tend to be won over by the human interest behind the business. There’s been a lot of press surrounding the product – about me, being a kid, making my way in the world of business. I could be somebody’s son, or their grandson. There’s been overwhelming support.” Even big businesses think he’s on to a winner. When he met Michael Simpson Jones, the Waitrose preserve buyer, at a “Meet the Buyer” event in 2006, he was sold on the idea straight away.

To keep costs low he rents downtime at an Edinburgh jam factory. His first consignment has just arrived at Waitrose. The supermarket is carrying 120,000 jars in 130 out of its 183 stores. And while Doherty confesses that progress has been “pretty much textbook”, the young entrepreneur downplays the crucial make-or- break decisions that have brought about his success.

“I suppose deciding not to make a strawberry flavour was unusual. Strawberry jam accounts for 40 per cent of all jam sales, but it’s a saturated market. Our offering lies in the specialised jam niche, we don’t want to compete with a thousand other strawberry jams.”

And there was also the pan issue. “SuperJam” relies on its nutritious, wholesome image to stand out from the crowd, but commercial jams are made in huge pans, with volumes up to two tonnes. The intense surface heat of these pans destroys all the natural goodness in the fruit – hence why conventional jams are so unhealthy. Doherty had to bring in smaller pans, of around 90 kilos, to keep the nutrition content high.

“The pans I used in my parents’ kitchen were 30 kilos, so production’s hardly changed.”

The plus side of these small-scale pans is that the jam sets more softly, which makes them more spreadable and opens up opportunities to diversify. “The jam goes really well with porridge and yogurts, so I’m thinking of maybe bringing out a range of desserts with jam at the bottom at some time in the future.”

SuperJam is subject to a six-month exclusivity contract for now, but Doherty will soon be courting the larger retailers, such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s. His sights are set on becoming a household name. “I want to have a five per cent share of the market in five years’ time.” That’ll mean a turnover of around £2m – at a conservative estimate.

But unusually for a businessman, especially an 18-year-old one, Doherty isn’t concerned with getting rich: “The margins on making jam aren’t great, but I’m not really bothered about buying a huge house or a fl ash car. I really love jam, and SuperJam’s going to make sure everybody else loves it too.”

He might be right. After Channel 4 screened Tricky Business, following the young jam-maker’s progress, people have been talking about jam like never before. Even DJ Chris Evans has had his tuppenceworth on the subject. And this wave of coverage could fuel an upsurge in jam sales all over the country. Doherty says: “People are going to start checking their cupboards and thinking, ‘Why isn’t there any jam in there. I’d best go buy some.’”

Tags: fraser doherty, back of an envelope, selling to supermarkets, superjam, sales, growing a business, starting a business, success stories, turnarounds, market research,