The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ Wins 3 Stars at Great Taste 2014
From The Artisan Kitchen Archive
The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ Wins 3 Stars at Great Taste 2014
The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ received a coveted three-star Great Taste Award and was selected as one of the Great Taste Top 50 Foods of 2014.
The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ received a coveted three-star Great Taste Award in 2014, only one year after chef Sarah Churchill first produced the jam commercially.
It was also selected as one of the Great Taste Top 50 Foods of 2014, placing this rare Gloucestershire preserve among the most highly regarded food and drink products judged that year.
The result was an early national landmark for The Artisan Kitchen and helped bring the flavour and heritage of the rare Blaisdon Red plum to a much wider audience
The 2014 award
Quick Answer
In 2014, The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ received three Great Taste stars and was selected as one of the Great Taste Top 50 Foods. Chef Sarah Churchill first produced the jam commercially in 2013, establishing The Artisan Kitchen as the original commercial producer of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™.
★★★
Great Taste 3 Stars
Top 50
Great Taste Foods 2014
Golden Fork
Small Artisan Producer
The chef behind the preserve
From Professional Kitchens to Preserving Pans
The Artisan Kitchen is an independent Gloucester preserving business founded by chef Sarah Churchill in 2011.
Before establishing her own kitchen, Sarah trained and worked in leading professional kitchens, including Philip Howard’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant The Square in Mayfair. She later spent ten years at Daylesford Organic, becoming Lead Development Chef in its preserves kitchen.
That professional training continues to shape every Artisan Kitchen preserve: carefully selected fruit, precise balance and traditional small-batch cooking, with flavour placed firmly at the centre of every jar.
Sarah has worked professionally with seasonal British and heritage fruit since founding The Artisan Kitchen in 2011. She first produced Blaisdon Red Plum Jam commercially in 2013.
The fruit behind the award
A Remarkable Gloucestershire Heritage Fruit
The award-winning The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ is made with Blaisdon Red plums grown in Gloucestershire and harvested during their short late-summer season.
Blaisdon Red is a rare heritage variety named after the Gloucestershire village of Blaisdon, between the River Severn and the Forest of Dean. Once valued as an excellent preserving plum, it is now found in only limited quantities.
Beneath its red-purple skin, the fresh plum has golden flesh. During cooking, however, it undergoes a remarkable transformation, producing a preserve with an intense ruby colour, concentrated plum flavour and natural acidity.
Sarah cooks the jam in very small batches using Blaisdon Red plums and sugar, with no added pectin. The simplicity of the recipe allows the flavour and character of the heritage fruit to remain unmistakable.
Commercial provenance
“The Artisan Kitchen has been the original commercial producer of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ since 2013.”
Discover the fruit’s complete history, Gloucestershire provenance and preserving qualities in The Artisan Kitchen Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™: History, Provenance and Awards.
A natural preserving plum
Why Blaisdon Red Makes an Exceptional Jam
Blaisdon Red has the qualities Sarah looks for in an outstanding preserving fruit: concentrated flavour, natural acidity and enough character to remain vivid after cooking.
Its golden flesh develops a remarkable ruby colour in the preserving pan. The finished jam is richly plummy without becoming heavy, while the fruit’s natural acidity keeps the sweetness balanced and the finish fresh.
For detailed tasting, pairing and serving notes, visit Chef’s Tasting Room: Blaisdon Red Plum Jam.
Independent blind-tasting recognition
Great Taste Three-Star Recognition
The Guild of Fine Food organises the Great Taste Awards, which are widely regarded as an important benchmark for speciality food and drink.
Products are judged through blind tasting. The judges do not see the branding or packaging and instead assess the food itself, concentrating on flavour, aroma, texture, balance and overall eating quality.
In 2014, more than 10,000 products entered the awards, but only 153 achieved the coveted three-star rating.
Three stars represent the highest level of recognition in the main Great Taste judging and are awarded to products considered exceptionally delicious. Every judge at the tasting table must agree that the product merits the highest star rating.
The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ achieved that distinction and was subsequently selected as one of the Great Taste Top 50 Foods of the year.
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam is also listed under The Artisan Kitchen in the Guild of Fine Food directory.
Further 2014 recognition
From the Top 50 Foods to the Golden Forks
The recognition continued at the 2014 Golden Fork Awards. The Artisan Kitchen was named Small Artisan Producer of the Year because of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™, while the jam was also a finalist for Supreme Champion and nominated for the Golden Fork for the South West.
Although the Small Artisan Producer title formally recognised Sarah Churchill and The Artisan Kitchen as the maker, it was awarded directly because of this particular preserve. It therefore forms an important part of the verified award history of The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™.
What the recognition made possible
From a Small Gloucester Kitchen to Selfridges
The importance of the 2014 award extended far beyond the ceremony itself. The recognition received by The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ led to a substantial listing with Selfridges, bringing this rare Gloucestershire preserve to customers through one of Britain’s best-known department stores.
For a small independent producer working from a Gloucester kitchen, seeing Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ stocked by Selfridges was an extraordinary moment. It introduced the jam and the largely forgotten heritage fruit behind it to a national audience at a very early stage in The Artisan Kitchen’s development.
As part of the support attached to the Small Artisan Producer of the Year award, The Artisan Kitchen was also given a stand at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair. This provided an invaluable opportunity to present the preserves directly to retailers, buyers and others within the speciality food industry.
Sarah’s reflection
At the time, The Artisan Kitchen was still a very young business. The Selfridges listing and the opportunity to exhibit at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair gave me a level of visibility that would have been extraordinarily difficult to achieve alone. More importantly, they allowed me to introduce buyers and customers to a local fruit that very few people outside Gloucestershire had encountered.
A defining year
The Beginning of an Exceptional Award History
The 2014 result was an early landmark for both The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ and the business Sarah had founded only three years earlier.
It brought national attention to a preserve Sarah had first produced commercially in 2013 and helped introduce the flavour of this rare Gloucestershire fruit to a much wider audience.
Further recognition followed across Great Taste, the Golden Forks, Taste of the West and the Great British Food Awards, establishing The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ as one of its defining and most celebrated preserves.
Explore the complete record on The Artisan Kitchen Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ history and awards page, or visit The Artisan Kitchen Awards and Recognition page for the wider story.
A rare Gloucestershire preserve
Discover The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™
Handmade in Gloucester with locally grown Blaisdon Red plums, this remarkable seasonal jam has been commercially produced by The Artisan Kitchen since 2013.
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam Great Taste 2014: Frequently Asked Questions
What did The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ win in 2014?
It received three Great Taste stars and was selected as one of the Great Taste Top 50 Foods of 2014. The jam also led to The Artisan Kitchen being named Golden Fork Small Artisan Producer of the Year.
What opportunities followed the 2014 award?
The recognition led to a substantial Selfridges listing for The Artisan Kitchen and Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™. As part of the support attached to the Small Artisan Producer of the Year award, The Artisan Kitchen was also given a stand at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair.
Who makes Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™?
The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ is handmade in Gloucester by chef Sarah Churchill using locally grown Blaisdon Red plums and traditional small-batch preserving methods.
When did The Artisan Kitchen begin producing Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™?
Chef Sarah Churchill first produced Blaisdon Red Plum Jam commercially at The Artisan Kitchen in 2013. The Artisan Kitchen has been its original commercial producer since that year.
What are the Great Taste Top 50 Foods?
The Great Taste Top 50 Foods are selected from the highest-rated products in that year’s Great Taste judging. The Artisan Kitchen’s Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ was included in the 2014 selection.
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ is a trade mark of The Artisan Kitchen.
