For most 14-year-olds, starting a business is not on the forefront of your mind. They are normally thinking about freshman year of high school and sports. Not even Fraser Doherty realized how his culinary hobby could turn into a real business. Fraser had grown up in his Grandmother’s Scottish kitchen making a variety of dishes but his specialty became jams. Eventually, he created a recipe of making jam with only fruit. This unique method of making all-natural jam led him to seeing the potential of such a product in the food marketplace. What started out as a small in-home jam selling business to a few friends grew to the point where Doherty dropped out of school to take on this venture. He rented out a small factory a few days every month to fulfill orders. The differentiation potential of pure fruit jam attracted quite a lot of attention. Not only was this a unique recipe, but the narrative surrounding this young culinary entrepreneur assisted him in his journey of scaling his company.

One of Fraser Doherty’s main struggles was the lack of capital that was necessary for branding and manufacturing the jam. He was just a young kid who dropped out of school to make jams. In the end, he was able to convince a design firm to create a the SuperJam brand fairly inexpensive. At the same time, he traveled around the country visiting factories before one finally saw the potential and agreed to produce the jam. This first major step allowed for rapid scaling as the orders continued to pour in. He continued to pursue SuperJam with his entrepreneurial spirit and in 2007, his jam had a major breakthrough.

In 2007, Doherty presented his jam brand to Waitrose & Partners, a supermarket in England. Impressed with his brand, they accepted his jams into their stores and Fraser Doherty became the youngest supplier of goods to supermarkets in the UK. From here, SuperJam spread to over 184 stores and continues to spread across Europe. Fraser Doherty’s story shows that a hobby like making jams in your grandmother’s kitchen can turn into a successful entrepreneurial venture with enough effort and strategy.