Rosebud Preserves

2009

• Dales Life, Autumn 2009, ‘Turn to Jelly’, Jonny Beardsdall.

• Saveur, October 2009, ‘Lamb’s Best Friend’, Katherine Cancila.

• The Northern Echo, 22 October 2009, ‘Just jamming’, Ruth Campbell.

• The Northern Echo, 19 September 2009, ‘Pig out for Britain’, Sharon Griffiths.

2008

• Dales Life, Christmas 2008.

• Country Living, October 2008, ‘Return to a GOLDEN AGE’, Louise Elliott.

• The Daily Telegraph, 21 October 2008, ‘Making jam: Jammy so-and-so’, Jonny Beardsdall.

• Forbes Life Magazine, 15 September 2008, ‘First Look: The Connaught’, Laurie Werner.

• The Guardian, 25 May 2008, ‘Kitchen confidential: Inside the chef’s larders’, R. Seal & M. Ferrier.

• The Yorkshire Post, 10 May 2008, ‘My home is my castle’, Yvette Huddleston & Walter Swan.

• Departures Magazine, March/April 2008, ‘The Grand Hotel Refreshed’, Sophy Roberts.

• The Northern Echo, 01 February 2008, ‘Much more than just orange jam’

2007

• The Guardian, 03 November 2007, ‘Food Directory: Farm Shops’

• The Northern Echo, 07 September 2007, ‘As If One Job Wasn’t Enough’

• Mayfair Times, July 2007, ‘Eating al fresco’

• London Evening Standard, 06 June 2007, ‘Critic’s Choice: Where to take afternoon tea’ , Charles Campion

2006

• The Daily Telegraph, 29 September 2006, ‘Don’t drive me nuts’, Clarissa Hyman.

• The Northern Echo, 08 September 2006, ‘Winner and runner up work only a few miles apart’.

• Yorkshire Post, 04 September 2006, ‘County marmalade tastes just champion’, Paul Jeeves.

• Red Magazine, September 2006, ‘My Top 3 Strawberry Jams’.

• Ripon Gazette & Boroughbridge Herald, 11 August 2006, ‘Medals on menu for food firms’

• Ripon Gazette & Boroughbridge Herald, 28 July 2006, ‘Award accolade for firm exporting to the USA’

• The Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2006, ‘Taste Awards Farm & Cafe’, by Alec Lom.

2005

• The Northern Echo, 08 November 2005, ‘From Big Apple to Apple Jelly’, Sarah French.

• Harrogate Advertiser, 19 August 2005, ‘In the world of preserves this business is causing quite a stir’, George Hinton.

• Dalesman, January 2005, ‘Yorkshire reaches the USA... in a jar’, Grahame Anderson.

2004

• The Northern Echo, 03 August 2004, ‘Hand Picked!’.

• The Northern Echo, 30 July 2004, ‘Expanding Preserves Business Benefits from £30,000 European Grant’.

2003

• Sainbury’s Magazine, November 2003, ‘All I want for Christmas is...’, Rick Stein.

• The Independent, 21 September 2003, The 50 Best British Foods , Caroline Stacey.

• The Yorkshire Post, 29 June 2003, ‘Food and drink firms at Big Apple’.

• The Daily Telegraph, 15 May 2003, ‘A taste of summer in a jar’ , Tamasin Day-Lewis.

2002

• Rick Stein's Food Heroes of Britain, 05 September 2002, ‘Special Ingredients’, Rick Stein.

• Harrogate Advertiser, 10 May 2002, ‘Festival snaps up chance to offer real taste of the Dales’, Deborah Heaton-Caffin.

2001

• The Smokehouse Magazine, Winter 2001, ‘Rosebud’s Winter Harvest’.

• The Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2001, ‘The preservation game’, Jonny Beardsdall.

• Country Living Magazine, September 2001, ‘Preserving the Countryside’, Shirley Mann | Read Article

  To read the original article as a pdf please click here.

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  PRESERVING the COUNTRYSIDE

  Twelve years ago Elspeth Biltoft , armed with eight recipes from her mother, started a company producing jams, jellies and pickles at her kitchen table. Now her range of 44 products is in demand as far afield as New York. By Shirley Mann.

  
  

  PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRIDGET PEIRSON

  It was the view from the top of her father’s shoulders as a child, exploring the fells and dales near her home in North Yorkshire, that first gave Elspeth Biltoft a deep and passionate love for the countryside and the changing seasons . Now, as the owner of Rosebud Preserves, a thriving business based in the hills near Masham in North Yorkshire, Elspeth channels those feelings into the chutneys, pickles, jellies and jams that she produces and sells to food lovers across Britain and in the United States.

  Elspeth, a dress designer, and her former husband Philip, a marine engineer, started the company in 1989. It was an enterprise they could run from home while caring for their three children, Katie, Rebecca and Jessica, now aged 19, 17 and 15. They had no technical knowledge but wanted to start a food business that they could believe in. Elspeth felt sure there was a market for high-quality preserves with the real tastes of the countryside, having produced them for family and friends since she was 15. “Making preserves was a cool-headed decision based on a realistic assessment of what I could actually achieve,” she says.

  Armed with eight recipes from her mother plus a selection of recipes donated by friends and unearthed from libraries, Elspeth began to develop her first preserves by creating the combinations of ingredients she liked . She felt it was vital to use pure and unaltered ingredients, without additives or preservatives. “I wanted to create something that was just like our grandmothers used to make,” she explains. “That quintessential English product that’s so hard to find in these days of mass-production.”

  The couple arranged a bank loan of £40,000 and used it to convert the 19th century stone barn next to their farmhouse in the village of Healey into a commercial kitchen, goods store and office.

  “To convince the bank manager, we took him samples of some of the preserves and ate them together at his desk,” Elspeth says. “He just loved the flavours.” They also got a grant of about £20,000 from the Rural Development Commission, which they used to buy kitchen equipment, and took an eight-week course in business basics at the Bedale enterprise agency. “We did our own market research by going round the countryside and trying other products,” She says.

  
  Rowan berries being prepared for wild rowan jelly, one of Rosebud’s original recipes; Elspeth makes all the preserves in a converted 19th-century stone barn helped by a team of local women; An assortment of Rosebud’s pickles.
  

  Elspeth began by taking samples to local specialist food shops, then started selling at agricultural shows. “That helped us build a mail-order customer base and introduced shops to us, as people would take the preserves into their local stores and ask them to stock our products.” The company’s big break came ten years ago, when the daughter of an American food distributor tasted Elspeth’s products at a London fair and sent a leaflet to her father. Rosebud Preserves now sells around 2,000 jars a month in the States. (“They absolutely love the mint jelly”) via Macey’s food hall and the food emporia Dean & Deluca in New York. An additional 8,000 jars a month are now sold at delicatessens across the UK.

  Rosebud’s range of 44 products includes chutneys, relishes, pickles, fruit and herb jellies, jams, marmalades, mustard, mincemeat and lemon curd. Each one is made using fresh ingredients and cooked in a 30-gallon gas-fired stainless-steel boiler pan in the barn. All peeling and coring is done by hand, although Elspeth does use a benchtop vegetable preparation machine for chopping and dicing and a Kenwood food processor for whizzing chillies, garlic and herbs.

  Because of the quantities used, Elspeth is not able to source all her ingredients from country suppliers, but she does buy as much produce as possible locally, often from organic sources.

  As well as many traditional recipes, including Old Yorkshire Chutney, the range includes more exotic flavours, such as, Malay Vegetable Pickle. “A few years ago the ethnic flavours were extremely popular,” says Elspeth. "But recently the greatest demand has been for traditional British products, such as, fruit jams, redcurrant jelly and old-fashioned green tomato chutney."

  Elspeth employs five local people: three cooks, a tele-salesperson and a labeller. Kitchen supervisor Brenda Cundall has been with Elspeth since the beginning and her abiding memory of the first week is having to prepare 1,473lbs of cucumbers. In the mornings she is joined in the kitchen by Valerie Dawes and Lucy Craven-Boyce. “We go out for a drink in the evening and we talk Rosebud,” Brenda admits. “We live, breathe and sleep Rosebud.”

  Seeing Elspeth sitting bathed in sunshine on the bench overlooking the hills outside her lovely Yorkshire stone house, it is easy to imagine hers is an idyllic tale of success and fulfilment. Elspeth is quick to dispel any such notion. “Rosebud Preserves hasn’t been a bed of roses; it’s been sheer hard work,” she says. “Life hasn’t been easy bringing up three daughters alone and I need to make sure I earn enough to give them a future.”

  Rosebud produces up to 4,000 jars a week. Determined to expand the business, Elspeth is using an agent to target retailers in the north of England . She has also set up a website to complement the existing mail-order service and hopes to move into continental Europe. “ I need to be more ruthless about which lines sell well and which don’t,” she says. “One of the worst mistakes I’m still making is that I find it hard to let go and delegate. I feel a little bit of me is in each jar and if I’m not there, that part of me will be missing.

  “When people unscrew the tops of my jars, I want them to feel they’re getting value for money. I’m determined that my preserves will taste different. I’d love to think their flavours reflect the beautiful countryside that surrounds us here.”

  
  During the crab-apple season, Elspeth regularly checks the trees growing wild on local farms for ripe fruit and often gives farmers pots of preserves in exchange; Red pepper relish is one of Rosebud’s most popular savoury preserves; Curious Swaledale sheep examine the crop.

  Reprinted with permission from Country Living Magazine, September 2001

• The Northern Echo, 08 June 2001, ‘One Stop Farm Shop Goes Ahead’.

• The Northern Echo, 10 March 2001, ‘US shoppers can get taste of Dales’.

• On Location, Spring 2001, ‘Jam today - and tomorrow!’

2000

• The Washington Post, 13 December 2000, ‘On The Fridge’

• The Northern Echo, 07 July 2000, ‘Rosebud Blossoms In Top Markets’

• Choice, May 2000, ‘Put to the taste-test: Mustards’

1998

• The Guardian, 31 October 1998, ‘Preservation order’, by Joanna Blythman.

1994

• Farm & Country, November 1994, ‘Yorkshire Pickles’, by Denis Chamberlain.| Read Article

  An original copy of the article as a pdf will be made available shortly.

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  Yorkshire Pickles

  Pickles, jams and chutneys with that genuine home-made texture have carved a considerable niche in the food market. The Food Hall at the Royal Show is a significant window - and Rosebud Preserves are up there with the best in the market. DENIS CHAMBERLAIN journeyed to the Yorkshire Dales to find out why.

  Rosebud Farm, perched in the hills just south Wensleydale in North Yorkshire, isn’t your normal idea of a food processing factory.

  The stone-built farmhouse and its range of small barns is typical of hundreds of others scattered around the dales - the very essence of the region’s world famous, natural beauty.

  It’s only when you get out of the car and smell the exotic and enticing aroma of hot apple chutney boiling away in the barn-conversion kitchen that you realise this is no ordinary Dales farm.

  Phil and Elspeth Biltoft moved to Rosebud Farm, Healey in the early 1980s. At that time Phil was working in off-shore installations in the North Sea and Elspeth was looking for ways to use a qualification in dress design. With a young family to consider, the lifestyle wasn’t quite right.

  “We wanted to do something in which we could both get involved. I had always been interested in making preserves of various types and we decided that we could build a business round that.

  “It was a conscious, not a gradual, decision. It was not a business that grew out of a few jars made on the kitchen stove. We went straight in at the deep end. We applied for change of use to turn the barn into a kitchen and store, carried out the conversion, and Rosebud Preserves was born,” explained Elspeth.

  All that was in January 1989. Rosebud made its first appearance at an agricultural show in April 1989 and is now a regular on the show circuit.

  “This year we will have been to some 170 events around the country, including the Food Hall at the Royal,” said Elspeth. “In addition we cover local markets in Masham and Middleham, we sell to shops, by mail order and we even exported to a shop in the USA.”

  The range has grown impressively too. It now includes 16 different chutneys and pickles, two relishes, 10 jellies and 10 jams and preserves.

  Pre-planning is particularly important for crab apples. They usually fruit every other year so it is important to spot the trees in blossom and do a follow up check during the summer. Crabs are harvested by laying a tarpaulin on the ground under the tree and then shaking off the fruit. Fortunately, the trees crop so heavily that there are good rewards for all the effort.

  “We have to do a lot of preparation to the fruit and the vegetables,” she explained. “It is time and labour consuming but ensures that we see everything that goes into the product at close hand. And hand preparation plays a role in quality control.”

  There is no doubt that this small food manufacturer is part of a growing trend towards the natural and the “just-like-granny-makes” desires of a broad spectrum of consumers.

  “What we find is that tastes are gradually changing. Of course we must continue to make the lemon curds and classic seville orange marmalade - and we sell all the jams we can make - but our customers are becoming more adventurous.

  “It is the younger generation, the thirty-somethings who are buying the more exotic products, with jams more popular amongst the older buying group. And there is a lot of gift buying. People are on the move, going away for the week-ends with friends, going to dinner parties - a jar of preserves seem to be a more imaginative gift than a bottle of plonk.”

  Mind you, sometimes the gift buying is taken to extremes. A recent caller at Rosebud Farm did all her Christmas shopping in one hit - 140 jars of preserves. That sent the Rosebud team back to the kitchen in a hurry!

  What of the future?

  “Travelling around the shows is hard work, eating into our weekends - but there is a lot of satisfaction in meeting customers and getting feedback on products.

  “It is part of an enthusiasm for natural food which we share and the teamwork involved in preparing, making the product and selling it is very good.

  “We have traded through nothing but recession since the business started but we have survived and grown modestly. Like all businesses we have to become more efficient - but we are confident that our niche will grow in the future,” says Elspeth.

  Five years ago, the range was a fifth of what it is today. Cucumber relish and a special chutney called Old Yorkshire were the original mainstays. But while these more traditional English recipes have maintained a following it is the exotics which really tickle the tastebuds in the mid-1990s.

  “Products such as Bengal Chutney, Hot Apple Chutney and Malay Vegetable Pickle are the favourites these days. Mostly, I feel, to spice English food rather than as a compliment to ethnic dishes. Hot Mango Chutney and Lime Pickle are the ones for the Indian takeaway or the home-made curry,” she said.

  Rosebud being a direct sales operation combines the selling operation with year round market research. People come on to the stand at shows and fairs to buy - and to comment on what went well with this or that product. The Rosebud sales team - four out on the show and fair circuit for most of the year - feed back the information and pass on hints to the customers.

  “We have to keep our eyes open for new ideas all the time, scour the recipe books and listen carefully to our customers,” said Elspeth.

  That is the way the Rosebud range grows. It is virtually all made up with domestic recipes, simply scaled up to meet the quantity demands of Rosebud. And natural ingredients - organic where possible - are the order of the day.

  Phil Biltoft, who is the main salesman on the road, is also the chief buyer when it comes to exotic ingredients. Six o’clock on a Monday morning will find him scouring the vegetable and fruit stands in Leeds Green Cross Market. He's a well known figure.

  “The salesman know that I am looking for a processing grade product - high quality in consistency and taste but not with the appearance that the greengrocer needs. When it comes to fruit, vegetables and exotic herbs I am a bit of a bargain hunter,” he explained.

  The mango, ginger, limes, chillies and the rest bought from Leeds are complimented with home-grown herbs from Rosebud Farm and locally grown vegetables. Exotic herbs come from a specialist dealer in Leeds and some vegetables - mostly currants and raspberries - are bought frozen.

  Crab apples, rowan berries and the like are picked from the Yorkshire Dales. Elspeth keeps an eye out for the right trees during the summer and returns, basket in hand, in autumn to gather the harvest.

  Reprinted with permission from the Royal Agricultural Society of England, November 1994

• About Masham, 25 March 1994, ‘Getting in a right pickle!’

• The Northern Echo, 15 March 1994, ‘Stateside taste of success for Elspeth’

1993

• The Northern Echo, 14 December 1993, ‘Strong ale to match other delicacies’.

• The Daily Telegraph, 13 November 1993, ‘Perfect Pie and pickle’, by Henrietta Green.

• The Northern Echo, 24 April 1994, ‘Just like grandma used to make’, by Sian Thomas.

• Farmers Weekly, 05 February 1993, ‘Jam, jars and pots of money’, by Tessa Gates.

1992

• The Sunday Telegraph, 11 October 1992, ‘Pickling with Relish’, by Simone Sekers.

• BBC Good Food, July 1992, ‘What’s Cooking’, by Kitty Butterwick.

1991

• Yorkshire Post, 21 August 1991, ‘Happy in a pickle’, by Jill Armstrong

1990

• Yorkshire Evening Press, 28 September 1990, ‘Sweet taste of success’