More talks on 'The Adventures of Jam Boy'

I've very gratefully been invited to speak at a variety of events over the coming months.  I figured I should pop them onto the blog, incase you fancy coming along.  Some of the talks are at conferences that you need to buy a ticket for.

28th January: 'Enterprise Spotlight' at the University of Hertfordshire, 6pm-8pm.

2nd February: 'My Life is my Business' event at Darwen Aldridge Community Academy, 11am-4pm.

3rd February: Strathclyde University SEN event, All Bar One, Glasgow, 7pm-10pm.

1st March: Disneyland Paris, European Study Tours, all day.
10th March: Use Your Loaf event, Durham, all day.
11th March, CIPD Conference, Perth, all day.
17th March, Philip Allen Updates event, London, all day.

Hope to see some of you there!

The SuperJam Adventure goes to Wales.

Last week, I was very kindly invited to speak to the pupils at a school on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales.

The pupils, aged 14-16, were working on coming up with ideas to set up their own small businesses as part of an after school group run by the "Mentermon", a government-backed organisation that aims to foster enterprise on the island.

I shared the story of how SuperJam came about and how we got the SuperJam Tea Parties off the ground. The kids were very enthusiastic and asked questions for about half an hour.

While I was on Anglesey, I got to stop off at "Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch", a small village that holds the Guinness Book of Records title of having the longest place name in the world.



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SuperJam Tea Party on the Isle of Skye..

The Minginish Community Hall on the Isle of Skye in the north of Scotland recently hosted a fantastic SuperJam tea party.  You can see all of the pictures here.

The elderly guests enjoyed plenty of scones and SuperJam, sandwiches and pots of tea.  There was even a performance from the school choir from the local primary school - Carbost Primary School.

We are hoping that there will now be a more regular tea party there, as it was the first we've had on the island.

Thanks a million to Graham Campbell, who put in a huge amount of work to make the event happen.

If you would like to run a SuperJam tea party for older people in your local community; please get in touch and we will support you in every way we can to make it happen!



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Interview about setting up SuperJam on Smarta.com

I was recently interviewed about how SuperJam came about by the fantastic website Smarta.com.  They have interviews with all kinds of inventors, entrepreneurs and business minds; check it out!

In this interview with myself, the founder of SuperJam, we talk about my first ever business (a small scale chicken farm in my parent's back garden at the age of 10!), the set backs I faced in getting SuperJam off the ground and all of the people who helped me out.  It is the same story that I have recently been sharing as a speaker at a lot of events at schools, colleges, universities and conferences across the country.

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Changeworks Make Waste History Conference.

Last week, I shared the story of the SuperJam adventure with a few hundred school kids at the Changeworks Make Waste History Conference at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.

I also spent the day running workshops for four groups of pupils, giving them the opportunity to come up with their own enterprising ideas to try and reduce food waste.  They then pitched their ideas to the whole group, 'Dragon's Den style', and one team was voted the winner.

The pupils came up with all kinds of ideas; from feeding food waste to pigs to creating a website to help shoppers predict what they need to buy better; helping them to reduce the amount of stuff they throw away at the end of the month.

The event coincided with the Climate Change conference in Copenhagen and the hundred of kids who came along definitely left with good ideas on how to reduce food waste.  You can read more about it here.

Chistmas Tea Parties!

Over the festive period, we have been having some really fun Christmas Tea Parties; with mulled wine, champagne and mince pies.

The guests have enjoyed the usual live music and dancing, as well as performances from local carol singers and at two of the larger tea parties in Edinburgh, we served up a whole lunch for everyone.  As always, the events were completely free for the guests to come along to and really brightened up their days.

One of the tea parties, held at a sheltered housing complex in Edinburgh, was filmed by Channel 5 and Sky News and will be broadcast at some point between Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

Thanks a million to all of the people who gave up their holiday time to come and help out at the tea parties!

Lovely wee BBC program about SuperJam!

A few weeks ago, the BBC came along to one of our SuperJam tea parties and filmed everyone dancing, eating scones and having a great afternoon.

They also came round to my house and we made a pot of strawberry jam.

This was all for a wee program that they were making and the whole feature is about seven minutes long and was broadcast on BBC2 last week.

The program is part of a very nicely filmed series about Scottish food and you can see the feature about SuperJam here (we're on at at 6:40).

Win a case of 100% natural juice from our friends at Feel Good Drinks

We’ve teamed up with our friends at the Feel Good Drinks Co. and have 10 cases of their delicious, 100% natural Juice Drinks up for grabs! Refreshing Feel Good Drinks are packed full of fruity goodness, contain absolutely no added sugar and come in a range of gorgeous flavours! Find out more about them at here.

Ten of you guys will each win a case of their amazing drinks.  For a chance to win, just sign-up for our email newsletters via the box on our homepage here.  We'll send you the occasional email love letter with news, jokes and all that.  

t&c’s and blah blah blah's 

1. Each prize includes 12x400ml Feel Good Drinks in a range of fruity flavours. 

2. Prize will be delivered within 28 days.

3. Not open to employees or family of Feel Good Drinks or SuperJam.

4. Your details will only be used by Feel Good and SuperJam to send you email love; you can unsubscribe at any point.

Sponsor Joe's Mustache!

Our Joe, seen here sporting a mustache-less face, has been working at SuperJam for a few months.  His favorite flavour is Raspberry & Cranberry and the highlight of his job with us so far was meeting Sir Terry Wogan..

Joe has very courageously decided to grow a sponsored mustache throughout the month of November ('Movember'), to raise money for prostate cancer research.  SuperJam is going to chip a few hundred pounds into his effort and it would be really wonderful if you could maybe donate a few pounds to the cause here.

Hopefully Joe will raise a lot of money for a really worthwhile cause and not too many people will laugh at his silly mustache.

(We'll post a picture of his mustache at the end of the month!)

Various talks on 'The SuperJam Adventure'..

Throughout November and December, i'll be sharing the story of how SuperJam grew from my Gran's kitchen to the supermarket shelves. You'll be able to come along and hear me speak at the following places:

Friday 6th Nov - Swindon: New College, 12pm-3pm

Tuesday 10th Nov - Aberdeen: Robert Gordon University (The Lemon Tree, 6.30pm) Students only.

Tuesday 17th Nov - Middlesbrough: The King's Academy, 12pm-3pm

Thursday 19th Nov - Kansas City, USA: Global Student Entrepreneur of The Year Awards

Tuesday 24th Nov - Manchester: Philip Allan A-Level student conference

Wednesday 25th Nov - Loughborough University, 7pm

Thursday 26th Nov - Glasgow: Scotland Food & Drink Forum

Tuesday 1st Dec - Lancaster University, 6pm

Wednesday 2nd Dec - Merseyside: Pensby High School

Friday 4th Dec - Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Tobermory High School

Sat 5th / Sun 6th Dec - Edinburgh: Foodies Festival

Tuesday 15th Dec - Edinburgh: ChangeWorks Waste conference

It's going to be a crazy couple of months and i'm really looking forward to meeting all of the people who come along to my talks.

Hopefully see you there!

SuperJam's Most Northerly Tea Party!

Last week, I was very kindly invited to visit Wick, which is a few miles from John o' Groats (the most Northernly point of mainland Britain).

The reason for the trip was to give a few talks at local schools, including to over 300 kids at Wick high school.  I also had the pleasure of visiting the Laurandy Centre, which was hosting the most Northerly ever SuperJam tea party for 30 or so elderly guests.

It was a really lovely trip and I was shown around by Professor Iain Blaikie, a friend of mine, who organised the trip and is a big believer in getting entrepreneurs, inventors, astronauts and political figures to speak to pupils at the local schools.

We even went for lunch on the shortest street in the world, which is in Wick and is about one and a half meters long!

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SuperJam Tea Parties wins 'Bighearted Scotland Award'

On Friday I was invited to the 'Bighearted Scotland Awards' in Glasgow, where I was a finalist in the 'Business Person of the Year Category', alongside Michelle Mone, 'curry king' Charan Gill and Mick Jackson of Wild Hearts.

The awards were set up to celebrate charitable work done  by individuals across Scotland and are sponsored by the News of The World.

There were some amazing stories being told and the event highlighted the wonderful work that so many people are doing to help others.

I felt very honoured to collect an award in recognition of the impact that The SuperJam Tea Parties is having on the guests who come along.  We have run over 120 tea parties in the past year and I am massively grateful to all of the hundred of people who have volunteered to help out - without all of their support, we couldn't have done it!

You can read more about the award here, if you like.

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Suggest a new SuperJam stockist and get free jam!

We’re constantly working on trying to get SuperJam into new independent stores; upmarket delis, quirky coffee shops and earthy farm shops, as well as B&Bs and hotels. 

If there’s a particular shop that you visit that you think should stock SuperJam, let us know their details using the form here. 

If they agree to start selling our wonderful products, we will send you a free jar of jam in the post to thank you for taking the time to help us to spread the love!

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SuperJam Cream Teas at Foodies Festival

As part of the world-famous 'Edinburgh Festival', Foodies Festivals will be hosting a massive food and drink event in Holyrood Park from tomorrow till Sunday.

We will have a stand there, serving freshly baked scones with SuperJam and the amazing Rodda's Cornish Clotted Cream.  I will also be giving a talk ('SuperJam: The Adventures of Jam Boy') at 11am each day.

You should definitely come along, for some scones and jam and for the chance to see demonstrations by top chefs and to sample some of the many culinary delights that Scotland has to offer.

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SuperJam Wins Nectar Business 'Entrepreneur of The Year' Award.

This week, I was delighted to be told that SuperJam has been awarded the 'Nectar Business Young Entrepreneur of The Year Award'.  There were a number of really great companies that were also up for the award, so it is a real honor.

Nectar Business said:

“We're delighted to announce Shiply.com, SportStars and SuperJam as the winners in the Nectar Business Small Business Awards. It's staggering to see how successful these three businesses have been in their individual ways. From, Shiply.com who have achieved incredible success in less than 12 months, to SportStars who spotted a gap in the education market to create a highly successful business, to young entrepreneur Fraser Doherty who set up SuperJam, the fast-growing jam brand in the UK - it's inspiring to see each of these three businesses leading in their field.”

“Everyone who runs a small business, especially in the current climate, has to work extremely hard to get it off the ground and make a success of it. The awards have represented a fantastic opportunity to celebrate great business ideas, business practice and people and I would like to congratulate all the small businesses from across the UK that entered.”

Thanks very much Nectar Business - it is a really wonderful pat on the back, encouraging me to continue to grow the business, as well as the SuperJam Tea Parties, as ambitiously as possible.

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Talking about jam on the Chris Evans Show

Some recent articles in the press (including this one in the Daily Mail) have been talking about the fact that jam-making has become 'cool', alongside knitting and other such things.

I'd like to say that its all down to me but it perhaps isn't.

I was very excited to be invited onto the Chris Evans show on Friday to talk about it. Maybe you heard our conversation. If not, you can listen to it here (at 31 minutes, 20 seconds).

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Tea Cosy of The Week!

This week's Tea Cosy of The Week is one of the most elaborate we've had so far.  

It was knitted by Dorine Berks, who is a member of the Contact the Elderly group in Aylesbury.  She is a big fan of our tea parties and of SuperJam and knitted this wonderful tea cosy for us.

It is in the style of a 'Lyon's Nippy' - a waitress from the Lyons Corner Houses of the 1950's.  

Jolly good.

If you'd like to see your tea cosy featured on the SuperJam blog - please get your needles out and send one in.  All the tea cosies that we get sent in are used at the tea parties and the knitters are given a selection of our SuperJams.

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The Royal Highland Show..

For the past four days, we've been handing out samples and telling everyone about SuperJam at the Royal Highland Show.  

The Show is Scotland's largest public event, attracting hundreds of thousands of people.  It is a sort of celebration of food and agriculture, with tractors, sheep and whisky.

We went through over fifteen thousand oatcakes and two thousand jars of SuperJam and we're definitely all exhausted.

The Queen even visited the hall we were in, which was very exciting.  I didn't get a chance to take a decent photograph of our stall in between handing out samples, signing autographs for over-excited school kids and talking to the thousands of people who stopped by to say hi.

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SuperJam a Finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of The Year Awards..

Last night, I fed my face in the salubrious surroundings of Gleneagles (Scotland's top hotel, where the G8 was held and Madonna married), at the 2009 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards.

These are absolutely the most prestigious worldwide awards for entrepreneurs, with past winners including the founders of companies whose products we use every day.  Last year, I was a guest at the EOY Awards in Palm Springs, California and met some incredible entrepreneurs who inspired me to keep doing what i'm doing.  

This year I was a finalist for the Scottish level of the competition and, according to Ernst and Young am the youngest ever finalist in the UK.  That's quite cool I guess but most exciting for me was that I got to meet some really interesting people.  They were from companies like the Bethany Trust, which is a massive social enterprise that benefits thousands of homeless people in Scotland and the guys behind BrewDog, a Scottish microbrewery that markets a range of trendy ales all over the world.

'Tricky Business' repeat from a few years ago...

A few years ago, when I was trying to get SuperJam off the ground, Channel 4 followed me around to make a 30-minute program about what I was doing.

As part of the program, I was given advice from the hugely successful Scottish entrepreneur, John Boyle, who built and sold Direct Holidays and then later set up Zoom airlines.

In the program, his advice was not to try to supply SuperJam to supermarkets.  Of course, I ended up going against his advice and following my dreams.

The program was repeated on Channel 4 this morning and you can watch the entire program on 4oD online, here.

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A day at the Races....

On Sunday, as part of our sponsorship of The SuperJam Great British Race Day at Brighton Racecourse, we served up cream teas to the crowds.

We used Rodda's clotted cream and freshly baked scones and it went down a treat.  The races on the day, which you might have seen on Sky Sports or elsewhere, were named after the flavours of our jams.

Over the Summer, we'll be serving up cream teas at events all over the country, so please do pop along and say hello.  Next up is the Cockington Proms on 12th July, in Torquay, which we're also a major sponsor of.

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By Royal Appointment.

On Wednesday, I had the privilege of meeting HRH Prince Charles.  He was a very charming man, as you would probably expect.

The event was a conference run by the Scottish arm of The Princes Trust, which is of course his charity that helps young people set up companies by giving them grants, loans and great advice.

I was supported by them when I was starting out and was invited to give the keynote speech, alongside Michelle Mone.

SuperJam Great British Race day at Brighton Racecourse!

Nice weather we've been having lately, eh?

We will be serving cream teas at all kinds of events over the Summer.  The first event this year is at Brighton Racecourse this Sunday, the 7th June.

SuperJam is the headline sponsor of the SuperJam Great British Race Day at Brighton Racecourse this Sunday. 

There will be six SuperJam races, Proms in The Paddock with The Sussex Band of the Royal British Legion, a 'Best Banger competition' and traditional seaside entertainment.

We will also be serving thousands of cream teas to the 8,000 people who're coming along, so come and say hi if you're in town!

If you'd like to come, you can buy tickets and find out more info here.

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SuperJam Documentary on BBC Alba.

If you happen to follow my Twitter, you'll know that a couple of weeks ago I was followed around for a whole day by a film crew from BBC Alba, the Gaelic channel.

We had a lovely day filming for 'Cuide Ri Cathy', with Cathy McDonald.  We tried out a new jam recipe in the morning, visited the local Waitrose supermarket to see the products on the shelves and then had a massive tea party in the afternoon.

Don't worry; it is mostly in English and the Gaelic parts have subtitles.

You can watch the program on BBC iPlayer here, for the next week.

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SuperJam Launches in Booker!

Booker has just launched SuperJam in their 28 Scottish cash and carries.  Convenience stores across Scotland can now stock up and give their customers the best jam there is.

You'll also be delighted to know that our range is currently on promotion in Morrisons, for 99p a jar for the next few weeks.

Winners of the SuperJam Knitathon Announced!

We've been running a 'knitathon' for some time and have now picked a winning tea party group, from Wales.  They knitted an incredible four hundred or so squares.  

You may have read in a previous post that these squares, and the thousands of others that have been knitted at the tea parties, have all been sewn together to make hundreds of blankets for Indian orphans. 

The knitathon has also raised over £600 for the orphanage, which will be spent on much needed supplies.  If you'd like to, you can donate to the orphanage here.

The winning group, pictured here, were very generously sent an amazing chocolate hamper from our friends at Kshocolat. 

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Debating Scotland's future on BBC Scotland's Riddoch Questions

Yesterday, a panel discussion about the budget, the recession and Scotland's future was broadcast on BBC Scotland.

On the panel was the Labour minister Andy Kerr, Lubina Kerr from a health-focused social enterprise, Lawrie Russell of the WISE Group and myself.

There were some tricky questions from the live audience and perhaps some good ideas came from the discussion.  

You can have a listen here.

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SuperJam interview on BBC2's Working Lunch

On Monday, I was interviewed by Declan and Naga on BBC2's Working Lunch program.

I was the 'main guest' on the show and the interview was, according to some of my followers on Twitter, the best i've had in a long time.

You can check out the interview on BBC iPlayer here, if you wish.

There has been a flurry of orders on the website since the interview so it has been all hands on deck in Jam Land - which is why it has taken me so long to blog about it!

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