Forget Smuckers: Try These Not-Too-Sweet, Flavor-Packed Jams

The Deli is an ode to the artisanal food makers of New York. Two weeks ago, we introduced Sarah and Jonah Reider, who turned a shared love of epic dinner parties into Pith, a range of condiments and other specialty goods that they started making out of their FiDi apartment. Much like the Reiders, the subject of this issue has a deep love of condiments. Ashley Rouse of Trade Street Jam Co. first started making jam for fun when she was a culinary student in Charlotte, North Carolina. Today, the chef and entrepreneur has a growing business in New York.

The Product: Clean label, mildly sweet fruit jams in culinary crafted flavors.
The Deli Pick: The sour cherry ginger jam.
How To Buy: Order online or find in store near you.
Price: $14-$18.

My family always cooked. I grew up with my grandfather being a really great cook, and my mom's really good cook. Growing up, I watched a lot of Food Network, like Emeril and Giada. In high school, when everyone was trying to figure out where they were going to go to college, I found out about culinary school. I mentioned it to my mom and my family and everyone was so impressed, you would have thought I was going to school to be a doctor! That pushed it along, like, I'm definitely gonna do this.

I have always been super creative. My mom had a really big, beautiful house in Charlotte, and I'd invite all my foodie friends over and everyone would bring products to swap. I'd make limoncello, pickled vegetables and all this stuff. I used to spend a lot of time putting things in jars, it's a good way to preserve things. This was in 2008, while I was at Johnson and Wales [culinary school]. I don't think I had ever seen anyone make jam, I probably just had a bunch of berries leftover that were going to go bad, so I just started making jam and putting random ingredients into it. I loved making jams and gifting them. It just felt really personal. I was like, I should make a jam company one day and call it Trade Street Jam Co., because my apartment in downtown Charlotte was on Trade Street. A friend of mine said, that's really cute, you should write that idea down. So I wrote it down. 

When I moved out here [to New York] about seven years ago with my husband, I was so inspired by the food scene, of course, but mostly the makers. You just walk down the street and you see an alley or a warehouse, and there's all these makers making food. I was like, I want to be a part of this, so I started jamming again.

We are a low-sugar, gluten-free vegan jam company, super culinary-inspired and clean. It’s really different than some of the Smuckers crap. We are kind of moving into being a gourmet food company. To grow to the scale that I want, we've decided to kind of go into other things. Jam is a condiment, so I think I would stick with condiments, which I personally love. I'd love to do sauces and dips and dressings, or like, fruit-based mustards. We’ve got the raspberry hot sauce, which is doing great - and I really am waiting for a free weekend so I can test out this passion fruit hot sauce. We also have a cherry chipotle mocktail mix, which... that's probably not a condiment.

I can think of a million different things. We're just trying to grow. We're five years in, and we've been bootstrapped this whole way. We hit a half a million dollars in sales last year, which was huge for us. Huge for me. We're trying to raise capital right now. I'm just trying to grow and have an exit strategy of selling this company to some big brand one day for $100 million. The dream is to sell the company and to be rich. People think it’s funny when you say you want to be rich. But it's a real thing. I do want to make a ton of money at the end and I want to create generational wealth. You see it in a lot of white families, but you don't see it in Black culture. I want to be able to pass it on to my kids.

Greatest hit: The strawberry chipotle fig jam is our number one bestseller and has probably been around the longest.

Most underrated product: The raspberry hot sauce doesn't taste like your traditional hot sauce. It's chunkier, it's got texture to it, and it's a little bit fruity. It's not crazy hot, I feel like it's well balanced.

Tips to best enjoy your products: Using the jam in cocktails is my absolute favorite. Take a really good spirit, a couple spoonfuls of jam, add ice and maybe a tiny bit of honey and that’s a good drink. Also, it makes a really good salad dressing. When you have just a little bit of jam left in the jar, add olive oil, a little red wine vinegar, some chives, a little mustard, maybe a little acid, like lemon juice, shake it up, and you have a quick vinaigrette. So fruity and bright. 

Favorite places to eat in NY: There's a place in the city called Coppelia, it’s a 24-hour Cuban diner, and they have the best lomo saltado that I've ever had ever in my life. I purposely go to Latin restaurants to try different lomo all the time and nobody's as good as this little diner.

Food makers to follow: I love Fly by Jing Sichuan Chili Oil. And many great guys I’ve collaborated with in the past, such as The Bad & Boozy, Pisqueya, Cuzin's Duzin, Breukelen Rub Spice Co, Harlem Chocolate Factory, and more.