Western Daily Press (Saturday)
From a basement flat to a rising star among the West’s artisan food firms
Chef Harry Calvert launched his preserve venture using the gas hob in the rented one-bed flat he shared with his partner Claire. Still a small-batch, independent business at heart, the pair are now celebrating two prestigious awards for their products as
WITH his copious red facial hair, it might seem obvious where Harry Calvert got the inspiration to call his food business GingerBeard’s Preserves. Not that the former chef will admit it was that easy.
“It might be hard to believe but it took us a long time to decide on the business name,” laughs Scottishborn Harry, who runs the awardwinning Bristol business with his French partner Claire Charras.
“I clearly remember sitting on the terrace of the Canteen in Stokes Croft nursing a pint and playing around with various options and eventually choosing on GingerBeard’s Preserves – and, yes, it does mean I can never shave off my beard now!”
It was a good month for GingerBeard’s Preserves. Results for the Great Taste Awards were announced recently and the company was awarded two stars for its Original Lime Pickle and one star for the firsttime entry Seville Orange & Whisky Marmalade.
All the products entered into the awards were blind-tasted by a team of judges. Great Taste’s expert judging panel is made up of more than 500 food and drink professionals, including critics, chefs, food journalists, buyers and retailers.
GingerBeard’s Preserves started back in 2014 when Harry and Claire were living in a rented flat in Bristol’s Montpelier, not far from the Star & Garter pub.
Food was always a central part of their lives – they’d be planning dinner during their lunch – and having worked as a chef for many years in Edinburgh and Bristol, Harry fancied trying his hand at running his own business.
At the time, Claire was working in communications and marketing, and Harry’s plans were either setting up a business making preserves or running a pub.
He says Claire was “hugely relieved” that he didn’t choose running a pub.
“I love sauces, chutneys, condiments, jams, and having done the usual handmade Christmas hampers, I felt that preserves were something I could really get my teeth into. Having worked with food before, I knew about food hygiene and preparation,” he said.
“I was fortunate to be part of a business start-up programme run by Outset, which really helped me get the basics of running a business.
“Claire was working in communications and marketing so she was keen to build up our digital presence on social media and through our website.”
The first GingerBeard’s Preserves appearance was close to their flat at St Werburgh’s winter fair. They got a great reception for their products, especially the Chipotle Ketchup, and were soon getting approaches from other local businesses to collaborate.
Harry says: “We were really lucky that well-established businesses like Moor Beer Co trusted us from the very start to use their beers and brand to make some awesome-tasting products. Since then, we’ve gone on to work with other breweries like Arbor Ales, Left Handed Giant, Dawkins Ales and Electric Bear to name a few.”
Thanks to the professional-looking packaging and quality of the products, a lot of people thought GingerBeard’s Preserves was a much bigger operation than it was in those early days. What customers didn’t realise was that the business was still operating out of the couple’s flat.
“When we first moved to Bristol from Edinburgh in 2011, we were in
The Bristol craft beer scene was just starting to explode when GingerBeard’s Preserves started and I was able to take a lot of inspiration from that. Seeing what breweries were doing and how they were able to create playful, exciting products made me want to do the same HARRY CALVERT
a tiny one-bed flat on Albert Road and we had actually moved to this one-bed basement flat in Albany Road as an upgrade. A few months later, every single possible storage space was filled with jars, cardboard boxes, huge bags of spices, large boiling pans, not to mention all the gear needed for a market stall.
“I was cooking on a domestic gas hob and producing about nine to 18 jars in a batch to start with.
“Looking back, it’s quite incredible to think how much I was churning out. We enlisted the help of many friends and family over the years, from helping us move stock and sticking labels, or chopping 20kg of onions first thing in the morning.
“Montpelier is such a friendly neighbourhood that we never had any issues with our neighbours concerning the business – in fact, many become customers – but a few curious neighbours did start to wonder what was happening in the flat.
“A few months into starting up the business and cooking from home, I was chatting to one of our neighbours a few doors down and told
him what I did, to which he replied ‘I always wondered what that lingering tangy vinegar smell in the back garden was!’”
For about six months, Harry was working full-time as a chef at the Primrose Cafe in Clifton and running GingerBeard’s Preserves on the side, doing markets at weekends. He slowly started getting his products into local shops like Reg the Veg and Otomi in Clifton, but soon realised that if he was going to get GingerBeard’s Preserves off the ground, he had to go full-time running the business.
“It was definitely scary, but also hugely exciting. As we started getting more and more wholesale customers, we started organising ourselves more efficiently in terms of production, packaging and shipping, but each upscale has been fairly gradual.
“It would be a larger boiling pan here, a commercial blender there, so it is difficult to pin a single point in time when we turned the corner into the business we are today. In 2017, we moved to our current house in Fishponds where I worked for a year or so before moving into the unit we are now at the New Work Trust in Kingswood.”
Harry grew up in the Cairngorms National Park, not far from Aviemore, with four brothers and sisters. His mum always cooked fresh meals and made her own jams, syrups and flavoured gins. He says the motivation to make his own preserves is her influence. “Scotland is known for its deep flavours, particularly when it comes to game and meat, and you need to have something punchy to go with them. I worked as a chef for a number of years in Edinburgh and Bristol, and I love big, bold flavours, not to mention beer.
“The Bristol craft beer scene was just starting to explode when GingerBeard’s Preserves started and I was able to take a lot of inspiration from that. Seeing what breweries were doing and how they were able to create playful, exciting products made me want to do the same.
“Being a small-batch and independent business means you have the freedom to try these things out, chat with customers and get feedback.
“Some of the more unusual products have included a fish pickle, a banana ketchup and a gin mincemeat.
“Inspiration comes from conversations with people, travelling and, of course, trying lots of different food and drink. One of our latest creations, the Curry Mustard, actually came as a result of a trip to France, where Claire is from.
“We stopped off in Dijon and Claire was adamant that I give this curry mustard a try and here we are! It’s been a hit ever since we released it.”
There are now three permanent members of staff at GingerBeard’s Preserves. As well as Harry and Claire, who is sales and marketing director, the couple have employed Darren James as warehouse and distribution manager. They also have seasonal staff for markets over the summer and Christmas.
Now producing around 60,000 items a year by hand in their unit in Kingswood, the business has certainly grown since the days they were making a handful of products in their flat. But like all small businesses, it has been a challenging couple of years and GingerBeard’s Preserves has had to adapt like the rest.
“When the pandemic hit, we saw all our markets cancelled overnight and there was definitely a moment where we wondered how we going to manage it as markets accounted for around 60 per cent of our sales.
“The silver lining of the pandemic for us was that our incredible customers and supporters went out of their way to support our small business.
“There was a great sense of community and solidarity. We adapted, of course, invested in a new website to better support our e-commerce offering, offered free delivery in Bristol and made up ‘survival boxes.’
“As people were apart, we saw a surge in gifts being sent and we got involved with Box Local. Food production was classed as an essential industry so we were lucky to be able to continue working through the pandemic and many of our stockists were able to stay open.
“Things have more or less gone back to what they were pre-Covid but of course, now other global crises are coming into play, as we are seeing shortages of a variety of raw ingredients and increased costs across the board.”
GingerBeard’s Preserves now supplies mainly independent business across the UK and currently has a concentration of stockists in the South West. In and around Bristol, you can find their products in places like Better Food, Otomi, the Hot Sauce Emporium, Nom Wholefoods, Fox & West, Deli @ Sandy Park and We Make Bristol, to name just a few.
Harry says: “We have seen a huge surge in demand for our pickled eggs, it’s been quite extraordinary – if you go for a drink in places like the Duke of York, the Farm, Snuffy Jack’s Ale House or the Lyon’s Den you’ll find our pickled eggs behind the bar. Try them with a bag of crisps!”
And as for future plans, Harry has plenty of goals for the coming months. There are also lots of new products in the pipeline.
“We are currently looking to hire an apprentice to work on the production side but plans for the future are more of what we are doing now, growing organically and consciously. We are looking to expand the places we are stocked in.
“Our products are fairly quintessentially British (with a twist) so we are focusing on the UK market rather than pushing any export although we have had a few stockists in France lately. We’ve got a few new releases up our sleeve that will be released through the year in collaboration with a couple of breweries. We’ll keep them secret for now, but the wait won’t be too long until they are released.”
The full range of GingerBeard’s Preserves can be bought at gingerbeardspreserves.co.uk/