Made in Britain finalist: Wood Berry Farm Jam

Wood Berry Farm in Wicklewood, Norfolk is one of the prestigious finalists of the Country Living, Waitrose and Farmers Guardian annual Made in Britain Awards.

Country Living magazine features local food producers every month - the Made in Britain Awards were launched by the magazine, together with Waitrose and Farmers Guardian, to reward those who are creating the best-quality and most innnovative foods, while keeping traditional skills alive. Five food producers of the year each received £5000 from Waitrose to develop their business. The overall Made in Britain Food Champion (selected from these five) received an additional £5000. Seven finalists were given the chance to have their product stocked in local branches of Waitrose. The Farmers Guardian Best Farm Entrepreneur will also receive £5000 from Waitrose.

 

As the nights draw in and winter blues descend, a spoonful of Wood Berry Farm conserve makes a marvellous medicine. Open a jar of Strawberry & Blackberry and you'll be back on your summer holidays in an instant. It brims with the sunny scent of perfectly ripe strawberries, its colour and taste intensified by blackberry zing. Softly set and studded with fragrant whole fruits, this fine confection is good enough to be eaten straight from the pot.

 

"We didn't want the flavour of the fruit to be overpowered by sugar," says Catriona Dickie, the fruit farmer's daughter who spent over a year perfecting a recipe to capture the essence of fresh berries. "There's at least 80g of fruit in every 100g of our conserve - it contains only 20 per cent added sugar. And "The fruit is grown on our doorstep, so it's often in the preserving pan within an hour of being picked" because I use fruit that's grown on our doorstep, it's had time to ripen properly on the plant. Some days it's in the preserving pan within an hour of being picked."

 

Catriona, who eats her conserve with Greek yoghurt, remembers picking fruit for pocket money while growing up on her parents' Norfolk berry farm. Now she's a London-based actress, returning regularly to her childhood home near Wymondham to stew homegrown strawberries, raspberries and blackberries on the family Aga.

 

Her father, Peter Dickie (who prefers to dollop his compote on porridge), bought the four-acre Wood Berry Farm 20 years ago on retiring from his job as a plant breeder for a global energy firm. "We did lots of trials and made lots of errors," he says of the family's jam-making experiments after deciding to add value to their fruit crop two years ago. "We maintain freshness by using short preparation times so we don't destroy the flavour or consistency of the berries. In all my years of travelling I haven't come across anything to match what we are making here."

 

Cooking techniques aside, the quality of the raw ingredients is a key factor in the success of Wood Berry Farm's fruit spreads (the unappealing but legally correct definition for conserves with such low sugar content). Pesticides are carefully limited and applied only when really necessary. "We favour biological pest control where we can," says Peter, who works as an agricultural advisor to the UN and EU in the winter. "We also use recycled punnets and re-usable glass jars."

 

The retro brown-paper labels were designed by Peter's son Ewan, who also built Wood Berry Farm's website with help from his mother Joan, and cousin Julia. Youngest daughter, Fritha, helps at farmers' markets, where her big sister's performing skills give this family business a head start when it comes to customer relations. "I put on my best smile and say, ‘You're going to love this,'" jokes Catriona, adding that her new career provides a welcome alternative to some of the dull jobs that a young actor might be obliged to take during the inevitable quiet periods. "It's a relief for me to be doing something creative. I'm just glad to be able to make a product that people enjoy."

 

Wood Berry Farm (01953 602530; www.woodberryfarm.co.uk)

 

Find all of this year's Made in Britain Awards winners here 

 

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