Meet Washington Winner Deluxe Foods

Posted on Wednesday, July 20th, 2011 in Preserves by Sandy Johnson


It took a break from the food world for Rebecca to realize her true calling as a preserver. She had previously worked as cookbook editor for Amazon and then as a cookbook agent before starting Deluxe Foods in 2009. She reflected upon what she loved about food after quitting a non-food related job and realized that her passion for collecting and making jam could turn into a full-time business. Deluxe Foods now produces as many as twenty different varieties of jam made in small batches from sustainably grown Washington fruits and vegetables.

In addition to her regular production of jam, which is currently a strawberry balsamic preserve, Rebecca is also deep into an experiment with strawberry syrup. She wants the syrup to be versatile enough to be mixed into drinks or drizzled on top of cake and has found that finding the right consistency can be difficult. As a small-scale producer, Rebecca has learned that the small, everyday problems can often be the most challenging ones: “It’s always the interesting things I haven’t thought of like what sort of adhesive will work on the label. It’s the funny little things that end up taking a lot of my mind space.”

Rebecca prides herself as a Washington producer and consequently, she does everything within her power to make sure her products are loyal to their roots. Upon opening Deluxe Foods, Rebecca asked herself a very important question, one which many producers would not even think to ask: “I asked myself: Am I a jam maker first or a Washington producer? I decided Washington came first.” Rebecca aims to make products that are a celebration of Washington State and therefore she will not produce jams that require a lot of produce from out of state; for example, marmalades which call for citrus. This does not seem to inhibit Rebecca, however, who boasts about the superior quality of fruit grown in Washington: “We grow the best berries and beautiful stone fruit up here so what I really try to do is celebrate the fruit the farmers are growing and add my own twist with my own flavors and spices…I work with some amazing farmers and I get to make their produce keep existing all year long.”

The Good Food Awards has provided Rebecca with both a new sense of community within the Seattle area and throughout the US, while also significantly boosting their sales. She has found that the awards provided a platform for producers with similar goals to create a network in which to share valuable knowledge of the industry. Rebecca notes that the Good Food Awards label is a point of pride at the farmer market and adds that since winning their award, Deluxe Foods has quadrupled production of the award-winning gingered rhubarb jam and it continues to fly off of the shelves.