Our Story

“For the true measure of agriculture is not the sophistication of its equipment the size of its income or even the statistics of its productivity but the good health of the land.” 

― WENDELL BERRY

We were farmers before becoming jam makers! Our mom and pop jam business began in 1998 with the purchase of apricot, peach, and plum orchards in Palisade, Colorado. With its hot, sunny days and cool nights, Palisade produces some of the best tasting fruits in the world. The water that irrigates the orchards and helps to grow such sweet, moist fruit comes from snowmelt off one of the world’s highest landscapes — the Colorado Rockies.

The orchards were badly in need of TLC, having been farmed for more than a century in ways that depleted the soil. Dedicated to the principles and practice of organic farming, we added organic material to the soil that it had lacked for so long and implemented other sustainable measures. Over time, giving back to the land more than we took from it, the trees responded to our caretaking. We sold our tree-ripened apricots, peaches, and plums at farmers markets, and our customers kept coming back for more.

In 2002, we transformed our seasonal farmers markets business into a year-round operation. We constructed a commercial kitchen on the same farm where we were growing plums, and Colorado Mountain Jam was born. Within five years of making our first jars of jams, they were winning international awards at the annual Specialty Food Show in New York City. Our jam line has been a six-time Silver finalist at this show, and two of our jams have won Gold awards as the “Outstanding USDA Certified Organic Product”. Today we do private label production for leading brands in America as well as producing jam for many Colorado fruit growers.

We are proud of the international awards that our jams have won, but we know we’ve succeeded when people taste our jam, smiles light their faces, and they exclaim, “I remember my grandmother making strawberry jam, and it tasted just like this.”