From hedge fund trader to chutney making champion
A business ‘Oscar’...thanks to mum’s recipes
AT 25, Jenny Dawson seemed to have it all, with a lucrative job as a hedge fund trader, exotic holidays and plenty of trips to extravagant restaurants. But then the Scots maths graduate decided it was time to stir things up.
Inspired by her mother’s recipes and memories of her idyllic rural childhood, she swapped the fast-paced world of boardrooms and megabucks deals for a simple market stall selling chutneys and preserves made from leftover fruit and vegetables donated by the food industry.
Three years on, the gamble has paid off after she won the ‘Oscars’ of the business world for her eco-friendly company – which now has an annual turnover of £100,000 and supplies Waitrose and Fortnum & Mason.
Yesterday, a thrilled Miss Dawson put her success down to a love of chutney she inherited from her mother Liz – who helped to get her business off the ground by giving her muchneeded advice on recipes.
‘My mum was on the other end of the phone talking me through things at the very beginning,’ she said. ‘I made some pretty vile batches – it was a matter of trial and error.’ Recalling her childhood in Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbrightshire, she said: ‘Our water came from a well, our fruit and vegetables from our garden and we had a wind turbine installed.’ But after graduating from Edinburgh University with a Master’s in maths and economics, Miss Dawson ended up working in a very different environment – a hedge fund in Central London. She never forgot her passion for all things natural, however. So, to the surprise of her family, she decided to ditch her lucrative career to ‘pick through the rubbish bins’ of the food industry. After collecting the surplus fruit and vegetables from markets or local farmers, she began boiling batches at home and selling them at a stall in London’s Borough Market.
Miss Dawson, now 28, said: ‘I went from being able to do exactly what I wanted – going on lovely holidays, having extravagant meals out – to living on a shoestring. I’ve only been able to start paying myself a wage three months ago, so it’s been a long wait. But I wasn’t passionate about finance and if I’d stayed in it for the money I’d have been really upset with myself.’
The entrepreneur, whose father is a beef farmer and whose mother is a ceramic artist, now produces 1,000 jars of chutney a week and hopes to exceed last year’s £100,000 turnover.
Her preserves come in six flavours, including apple and ginger, and cost less than £5 per jar.
Last night she was awarded the Veuve Clicquot New Generation Award for her innovative company, Rubies in the Rubble.
‘I’m absolutely thrilled,’ she said. ‘When I had a change of heart and told [my family] “I want to make jam from leftover produce” there were a few surprised faces, but they understood the ethos behind my idea. But the most important thing they taught me was about believing in myself and not to be afraid of failure.’