Community Highlights: Meet Bradley Brown of Brad B Jammin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bradley Brown.

Hi Bradley, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My wife Kristen and my daughter Paige own a store, Melrose and Madison at 1500 S. Pearl St in Denver. It’s in Platte Park near Sushi Den. They opened late in 2014. In 2015 they learned that because they owns a store that does business on Pearl St they are guaranteed spot in the front of her store at the weekly South Pearl Farmers market. They bought retro Broncos wear to sell at the market. My daughter didn’t really want to do the farmers market each week, but my wife did. She asked if I would come and help her set up her tent every Sunday. Being a startup guy, I listened to all of the vendors and I watched their sales vs. our sales. There was a guy selling a garlic spread across from us and knew he was selling over $1000 a week of his product. That blew my mind. In 2016 my wife and I attended a farmers market in California and bought some raspberry jalapeño jam that also was mind blowing. Later that year my wife and went to St. Thomas and tried to find an interesting jam at markets, in the stores, etc. We could find raspberries and jalapeños…and pectin and sugar, so used our rental units kitchen and made a batch of raspberry jalapeño jam (RJ). I used a blender pitcher to house the jam for the week. We used it on EVERYTHING! When we came back to Denver, I learned more about the cottage laws for jam making. You can’t make jams with vegetables (jalapeños) in your home kitchen. I attended cottage school and started making and selling my jams in mason jars. It was a fun first year and I learned the business…so I thought.

The next year my plan was to keep the business a fun one man show with jams selling every week. I averaged sales of about $300 each Saturday. Then a friend from my home town of Princeton, Illinois said her daughter and her best friend wanted to do an internship that next summer. They had a home to stay in for the summer. They quickly signed up for 25 farmers markets a week! I was blown away at how many markets there are every week. 2 problems with this. 1) I didn’t want to make “more” jam every week and 2 young ladies couldn’t make that much either. 2) I could cover 1 market, they could cover 3-4 a week (they only had 1 car and most markets are Saturday and Sunday. That left 20 markets a week. A friend of mine from the tech world stepped in with his wife and 3 teenage kids – here enters the Petri family. We hired a team of college students to work the 25 markets a week. Problem 1 solved. Then I found a co-manufacturer to make the jams. I went through the R&D process for 12 products. This takes weeks per product. Fortunately we did great that summer.

When the summer ended the young ladies went back to college and the Petri family didn’t want to do another summer of herding cats. Again I was thinking I would take the business back to the Pearl market and scale WAY down. Then boom, here enters the Butcher family. My good friend Jamie said he would take over the business. He got a 5 year lease on a kitchen and started doing our own production. It was our best year (in sales) ever! Then, once again, things got rough for the business. Jamie was offered a sales job in Seattle, so he moved. I still had a 4 year lease. I stepped in and ran the business but I had several other companies that needed my attention (and paid a lot better), so fortunately I was in a church’s rental unit and they agreed to let me out of my lease if I could find a buyer for the business.

I found a buyer. He moved everything out of the space and took over the business. Unfortunately for reasons I don’t really understand to this day, he stopped offering shipping, he stopped delivering to wholesale customers, gave away a TON of product, threw away all of my boxes and did many other things that baffle me to this day. I offered to take the business back and the non-paying buyer handed the business back to me.

Fortunately I found a kitchen to house my equipment and make my jam (with my equipment). So I’m back in the business without a monthly rent bill. I was able to recapture many of my best wholesale customers. I’m offering shipping and I have re-ordered and received all of my new cute packaging and shipping boxes. I only do South Pearl Street market now.

So it’s full circle back to where it started. 1500 S. Pearl St. You can find all of our products there. That’s my only farmers market. If you know anyone who wants to buy a jam business, that ship sailed for me. I’m happy with where the business is and where it’s going.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Ha ha! I think I answered that on the last question. SO many times that I’ve had to step back in and run the business. There’s no such thing as a smooth road in business. I didn’t talk about our costs. Cost of glass has gone up 4 times what I started at. Cost of labels are up 3 times. Cost of sugar more than doubled then came back down to about 10%-20% higher. Cost of fruit went up 3-4 times. So on average costs went up 3-4 times. Food is a tough category.

I’m a tech guy. I had over 400 people working for me at my consulting firm. I’ve done a LOT of consulting and I’ve built and sold a number of tech companies. People would say the jam business is a passion project of mine. I actually LOVE having a physical product that people really enjoy!

Bottom line – it is a passion project!

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Brad B Jammin?
We make amazing jams. We used to experiment and have made about 200 flavors over the course of our business. We now have our top 25, OK, maybe 50…that we’ll stick to going forward. We have an onion jam that is to die for! We have a tomato jam -wow! Our pepper jams are unreal! Boozy jams are a favorite! Peach Bourbon is our all time best seller! Peach, Cinnamon and Bourbon! So good!

What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love the support everyone has given our business. I live in Florida more than 1/2 the year. I took our products to Florida and sold them at the markets. People in Florida don’t buy spicy jams! So I LOVE how open Coloradans are to try new things!

Pricing:

• $27 for a 3 pack of large jars in a box
• $50 for a 6 pack of large jars in 2 boxes
• $20 for a 5 pack of our mini jars

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bradbjammin.com

Image Credits
All mine