BLUE CHAIR Fruit Company
23rd October 2012
I was doing a little research into classic kitchen chair designs. I spent a lot of time at Auctions buying antique furniture when I first started out, restoring them in a garage with my old friend Phil and trying to sell it. I remember, when we held our first sale with dozens of perfectly restored Georgian corner cupboards, pine chests of drawers and tables and linen presses, all lovely stuff, delicate, beautifully proportioned. We put signs on lampposts all round town at 6 in the morning, and waited for the rush. We waited all day and 1 person turned up, ONE PERSON. And he was the neighbour wanting to know what the hell was going on. Business, don’t you just love it. All those hopes and dreams flattened over and over again, but something makes you want to try again and again. I guess I just can’t give up once I’ve started on something.
Skip forward 20 odd years and here I am Googling kitchen chairs and I come across The BLUE CHAIR fruit company. If you watch this lady talk about making Jam you will have changed your whole perception of Jam. Her passion for what she does is infectious.
In 24 hours I have shown this video and other stuff on her website to friends and colleagues and all of a sudden Phil and Claire are going to be using their fruit from Portugal to make preserves and bring them over, which we will brand to sell alongside other homemade products and gifts to sell from our new premises, which up until now I have kept secret. Since we are likely to be exchanging contracts today I feel almost able to let the cat out of the bag.
At the moment I’ll just say 12 Acres, 1000 year old Mill, landmark listed building, four beautiful storeys with original machinery and exposed trusses. Every nook is a stunning photograph waiting to happen. We have so many plans, we’re just brimming with ideas, and now Helen is going to live out her dream and make a cookbook. Helen is a great cook, she is as passionate about cooking as this Jam lady and right now Helen and Tim are taking some lovely shots of blackberries and eggs for the front cover of a new magazine called Simple Things. It’s a really nice new magazine and they like our photo’s so we’re scratching their back with some nice photo’s to order and we’ll hopefully have another front cover article to our name.
Please take a look at this inspiring lady, Rachel Saunders and then maybe keep an eye out in the future for our exciting secret project to be unveiled.
