In 2004, fourteen-year-old Fraser Doherty of Scotland began a remarkable career. It all started when his grandmother taught him her jam recipe, which contained 100% fruit. In 2007 (using his grandmother’s recipe), Doherty took his jam company, SuperJam, to Waitrose – a UK supermarket company. Doherty went on to become the youngest person to ever supply a large supermarket chain.
By the time Fraser was seventeen, he had generated over $750,000 in sales. Furthermore, he has sold millions of cans of jam since the company’s inception. In addition to this, Doherty went on to invest in many charitable projects and organizations. He has hosted hundreds of free “SuperJam Tea Parties” for the elderly and has invested much of his time into community beekeeping projects.
Fraser has also written many books, from business how-to guides to cookbooks. He has also received many awards, such as the “Enterprising Young Brit of the Year” award in 2004 and the “Global Student Entrepreneur of the Year” award in 2007.
In 2013, Doherty co-founded Beer52, the world’s largest beer club. It has become one of the must successful startups in Scotland, with more than 200,000 customers. Beer52 also produces the UK’s top craft beer magazine, Ferment.
What started as a fun experience with his grandmother has radically transformed Fraser’s life. All it took was acting upon a unique idea: a jam made with 100% fruit.
Wow Payton, that is really incredible, its amazing what a good product can do!
This is a amazing thing to see something so simple come into a great successful business. Taking what Fraser was taught by his grandmother and make a business out of it. Making jam with 100% fruit is not easy either and its great to see a kid at such a young age to change not only his life but his family’s life as well.
What a great, inspiring example of a young entrepreneur. This is interesting because it specifically focuses on an area that many might overlook- namely the jam and fruit preserve market. It is amazing that Fraser took a chance and ran with this idea, and so encouraging to read that he began to make altruistic investments with his success- the tea parties for the elderly sound so sweet– what a great idea!