Where have all the jam makers gone?

Alex Darling said a poor crop of plums would normally be snapped up by jam makers, but they "seem to be a dying breed"

A fruit grower has predicted a large wastage of plums this year but fears the jam makers who would usually snap them up "don't seem to exist any more".

Alex Darling, 26, of Hyland Fruit Farm in Somersham, Cambridgeshire, said this year's Victorian plum crop was 50% down on last year's, due to extreme weather patterns.

He said the plums were not such good quality as normal, but would be fine for jam - if the makers were there.

Nikki Booth, who has made preserves professionally for many years, said she thought the rising costs of ingredients was putting potential jammers off.

"My nan and mum both baked and made jams, so making jam at home was something I knew," she said.

"We also went fruit picking in the hedgerows, for blackberries particularly."

Jam making can be time-consuming and sometimes expensive

Jam making, she said, was "a skill which isn't needed so much these days so people are turning away from it, or not turning to it in the first place".

Ms Booth, who has run Nikki's Homemade Preserves in Burwell, Cambridgeshire, since 2010, said at 51, she was one of the younger jam makers she came across.

She thinks the cost-of-living crisis means that "people are less likely to buy luxuries, like jam" from small businesses.

And, as for making it themselves, the cost of the ingredients could also be off-putting, she said.

"Going to a pick-your-own strawberry farm and paying £5 per kg, it is then expensive to make those strawberries into jam as you need sugar, lemons and pectin, so it could work out at £8 for four 1lb jars.

She said the cost of new jars had increased by 40% in the last five years, further reducing the incentive to make jam.

Nikki Booth hopes more people will start making their own preserves

Laura Goodman, who runs Blackboard Events, which stages farmers' markets in and around Peterborough, last month issued a plea for more jam makers to attend.

"I have four jam makers on my books and they are all from the older generation - no younger ones at all," she said.

"It's taken me 10 months to find these four and it's not enough - people expect jam at a farmers' markets and I do find it an issue."

She agreed the cost of living, including the price of ingredients, may be a factor and that it could sometimes be cheaper to buy jam ready-made.

Ms Booth would like people to growing their own fruit or forage for ingredients to make jam more affordable.

"I hope as people get more familiar with what fruit is available in season here in the UK people, will give jam making a go," she added.

"It makes the perfect gift and everyone loves to be given something you made yourself."

Laura Goodman has had problems finding jam makers for her farmers' markets

Helen Foster, a member of the Huntingdon and Peterborough Women's Institute (WI) said at 28, she was probably at the "younger end of jam making" but had been making preserves since she was six.

"I forage for blackberries, get apples from a community orchard and use old jars," she said.

"Jam making is still a 'thing' at the WI but we're about more than jam and Jerusalem.

"Jam and cake is still part of the WI but we do lots of things. We have members whose hobby is axe-throwing, for example - it's very diverse."