Jam Lady Jam

"I love the fact that people are waking up to a little bit of me in the morning!" Lisa O'Connor

This is one of those white van explorations. I didn't actually see it, but my sister did, on the way to the market and she was struck by the name - Jam Lady Jam - as was I. So when we got home we looked it up and discovered another one of those interesting little personal stories of enterprising people making a success out of a sort of accident in this case.

Lisa O'Connor - the lady in question is an ex opera singer, but back in 1995 she developed a bad case of tonsillitis that eventuated in her having them out. Whilst recuperating she was inundated with gifts of fruit which she didn't want to eat, so she made some jam and distributed it to friends, some of whom owned restaurants - well she was an opera singer, so probably part of Melbourne's cultural society. They were impressed and told her that she should make it professionally, and so after some thought and some indecision she did.

She married a chef and moved out to Healesville, where they combined their energies into handmaking a very wide range of different jams - e.g. raspberry grappa, apricot cardamom, peach passionfruit, quince rosewater and so on. There is quite a wide range, plus some marmalade and some savoury relishes. She says she has also now invited another chef to join them and he and her husband make things under their other label Handmade in Healesville. Frustratingly though I can find nothing about this other label. It is not a separate part of her website, and there does not seem to have its own website either, so quite what they do I do not know. Maybe they do the relishes. From the picture above it certainly does seem to be handmade.

But they are, of course, pretty expensive. I saw one website selling them for $11.00 a jar which is considerably more than jam you buy in the supermarket - I just had a quick look and see the prices of supermarket jam ranged from $2.50 to $5.50, although there are probably some more expensive gourmet products there too. So who buys Jam Lady Jam and where do they buy it? Well when I looked at the list of stockists I found, not really to my surprise, that you can buy it in expensive suburbs like Brighton, Prahran and Middle Park and tourist destinations like the Yarra Valley Dairy. I wonder if people buy it for everyday consumption or is it just bought for presents. Would many of us eat a jam like date and orange blossom every day? But she has been in business since 1995 and she has quite a long list of stockists, including faraway places such as Sydney, Noosa, Magnetic Island and even Singapore. If I want to buy it I shall have to go out into the Yarra Valley I think, which I may well do shortly as my sister is visiting. Maybe we should buy a jar to see if it is any better than my own home-made wild plum jam.

Well done Lisa though. Just shows what you can do with a little bit of talent and a lot of determination.