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Kelly's Jellies History
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The whole jam process started because being a single mom I wanted to give my four children a good homemade jam without preservatives. Just like my mom made. I didn't have a big freezer like my mom, so I had to teach myself how to make cooked jam and jelly. It started out with strawberry, then peach, and then the other “normal flavors “.
I needed a place to store them, so I found an old jelly cupboard which needed a lot of help. I stripped off the 5 coats of paint and stained it to match the wood in my home. (It looks beautiful now!). I had to fill my gorgeous cupboard, so I started mixing different combinations together. Soon I had more jams and jellies then we could ever eat in a year. So I started giving them as Christmas gifts to my fiancee's family. They thought I should sell them. I didn't think people would buy them until I took a gift basket with several jams to work for the raffle we were doing for a family that needed help for the holidays. |
| My basket brought in the most money in the raffle. Everyone wanted to buy one. (Maybe there is a market for this?). The following year I got my license to make them at home and sell them. I started stocking up on fruit that summer, and took them to the state fair for competition. We won 4 prizes that year for the 6 jams and jellies we brought in. November of that year, we started selling them to the public. The jams are all made with the fresh fruit that we either grow here at our home or obtain from friends and family. |
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When all else fails, we pick fruit at the local u-pick fields or buy from the local farm markets. The jams are made with all natural products, nothing artificial. Even the pectin is a fruit pectin. The only not from fruit ingredient we use is the green food color in the mint jelly. We do buy non-Western New York fruit at the grocery store.
Not only are our jams and jellies award winners, but they are made with the “real” stuff like grandma made, not with juices. They are also all made in single batches to keep their flavor and quality. They are not mass produced and each batch only makes about 7 to 9 jars. It's a labor of love! Like when your mom and grandma made it for you.
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