Discovering his grandma’s recipes for jams, 14-year-old Fraser Doherty found himself a new hobby. Fraser began making jams and selling them throughout his neighborhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. After receiving positive feedback from his neighbors, Fraser decided to set up a stand at Edinburgh’s Farmers Market. His then business model involved him biking to customers to fulfill and deliver orders. However, demand quickly picked up. He started receiving more orders than he could handle with his minimal jam production in his parents’ kitchen and bike delivery. So, at the age of 16, Fraser made the decision to leave school and focus on his jams full time. He made a few changes to the recipes, making his jams only from fruit and fruit juice, and titled his business SuperJam. To increase production, Fraser rented out a factory for a few days each month. Sales continued to grow. Then, in early 2007, a high-end supermarket in the U.K. by the name of Waitrose approached Fraser with a proposition to sell SuperJam’s products in their stores. Within months Fraser had SuperJam’s products in 184 different Waitrose stores, only growing his business more. With ever growing demand, Fraser continued to expand his business. He borrowed 5,000 pounds to fund more factory time. 5 years later, Fraser launched SuperJam’s products in Korea and Japan where one million worth of merchandise was sold within an hour on a Korean shopping network. In 2019, Fraser sold his five-millionth jar of jam. In addition to his main company SuperJam, Fraser launched a second company in 2008 called SuperJam Tea Parties. Many parties have been hosted through SuperJam Tea Parties for elderly people who are alone or in nursing homes in Scotland and Wales. Fraser explains, “Guests often cry at the end of the afternoon since they’ve had so much fun.” With live music, dancing, and drinks, the parties have attracted as many as 500 guests. From hobby to business, Fraser Doherty remained passionate about his product and created value through it. From the adjacent possible (the combination of his grandma’s recipes and ingredients) to slow hunches (Fraser’s initial hunch to make jams as well as Waitrose for seeing the potential of the product), SuperJam’s story is one of amazing entrepreneurship.
Fraser is really out there hustling. It was cool to see how his business progressed from delivery via bike to a million-dollar business. This is another great example of someone who found a niche they are passionate about and ran with it. I am sure when he was initially starting business it didn’t even feel like work, he just enjoyed the jam business. I hope to find my own jam one day.
I’ve never heard of him till today but it’s amazing to see how much dedication this guy had. He started out with nothing but a delivery idea and a bike and it’s just so amazing to see how far he took that and became a massive business. He is quite a talented entrepreneur.
Hey! Great job on this posts, I can honestly say that I have also never heard of him, but it is so interesting to learn about his journey, and how his inspiration came from his Grandmother. I find this to be very inspiring because he shows that innovation can grow from generations of family success.
Hey, I really liked this post. Fraser seems like a very honorable and successful entrepreneur. I really liked how he invested much of his money back into his business. For example, he put quite a bit of money towards renting out factories to grow Superjam. I also thought that his idea of selling on Korea and Japan was bold and unusual, but it seemed to pay off exponentially for him in only a short amount of time. Fraser did not stop there; however, it was impactful to hear how he put on these parties for the elderly to spread positivity and jam!