By Tom Ayres, Senior Staff Writer
The co-founder, owner, and executive chef of Blake Hill Preserves last Friday dismissed social media speculation that the award-winning specialty food producer shuttered its doors in March.
The manufacturer of sweet, spicy, and savory jams and preserves, currently based in a recently enlarged facility at Artisans Park in Windsor, has been producing and distributing its products locally and nationwide for the past 13 years. Beginning in early March and continuing through last week, postings on Facebook and other social media outlets by former Blake Hill employees and dedicated local fans of the company’s products have lamented what some termed the “permanent closure” of the food maker’s operations in Windsor, which had undergone a significant expansion over the course of the past two years.
“I’m happy to confirm that it’s not the case — we are very much in operation here,” Blake Hill Preserves co-owner and master jam-and-preserves maker Vicky Allard told the Standard last Friday, just after wrapping up another morning of production at the Artisans Park manufacturing facility. “And I’m happy to sort of back up a bit and go over where we’re at. Our blanket brand itself is definitely continuing its success,” Allard offered. “We’re getting a lot of orders all the time — and we’re actually going to have a big production session this weekend, just to lay things out for the next couple of weeks. We’ve got some really great, long-standing customers — and there are some cool new opportunities with respect to a new distributor.”
Allard acknowledged Blake Hill’s loss earlier this year of a large, private-label customer that had gone through “major restructuring,” which resulted in a “significant reduction in their business — and that therefore obviously impacts us, because we are their jam maker and now they don’t need anybody to make their jams.” Allard, who co-founded and co-owns Blake Hill with her husband, Joe Hinglin, added, “That obviously hits us, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the brand. It’s very much on the other side of our business — the private label side. We had to take a look at what our operating model should be. And we did what a lot of companies actually do, where they might go on furlough during the quiet time of the year. We’ve never done that before — it’s not a fun thing to tell people that when you go through a quiet time, you have to use furlough — but we had to figure out what to do given the restructuring of the private label customer.”
At its peak, Blake Hill Preserves employed 25 to 30 people. Allard said the company furloughed all of its employees in early March, simultaneously shutting down its on-site retail jam shop and tasting facility. “Now we’ve brought some people back, and we’re very much operational, albeit with a smaller team, and we’ve been busy making jams for quite a few weeks now,” Allard said. She noted that there are currently “about 10” people involved in jam making at the Windsor plant. “We’re definitely in operation. We haven’t gone out on social media to say anything — it’s just not our policy to respond. But if customers reach out, we’ve been very happy to let them know that we’re still in business and making jams. Our Blake Hill Jam Shop is closed for now, partly because of the economics of this off-season, quiet time of year. It makes sense to have the shop open when we’re busier, so we’ll continue to revisit that,” Allard averred.
For the time being, Blake Hill is encouraging local customers to order their fill of jams and preserves online at blakehillpreserves.com, with product pickup available at pre-scheduled times at the specialty food maker’s Artisans Park facility in Windsor. Blake Hill products continue to be sold through local retail stores as well, including the Woodstock Farmer’s Market, Brownsville Butcher & Pantry, the Billings Farm & Museum gift shop, and multiple food co-ops in the region, Allard noted.
The veteran entrepreneurial chef added that Blake Hill products are also still shipped to online buyers nationwide and to retail outlets across the country via the manufacturer’s existing network of regional distributors.