On Friday, I purchased two jars of apricot jam/spread from As Ever. The Duchess of Sussex has a gift for jam-making, if her raspberry spread was any indication. I’m looking forward to receiving the apricot spread. Within a few minutes of ordering, I received an email saying that my As Ever package would arrive in a week. I doubt anyone has already received their AE packages from their Friday orders. And yet, the Daily Mail wants to convince people that they know people who already have the apricot spread. Magic! Not only does some “champion jam-maker” already have the apricot jam, she magically provided some nasty comments about the product to the Mail:
The Duchess of Sussex may have set the tills ringing with the latest ‘As Ever’ merchandise, but her new apricot spread has been savaged by critics – within hours of going on sale.
Champion jam-maker Donna Collins said: ‘It’s a real disappointment that Meghan is selling a fruit spread, which is what you make when your jam fails. In the jam industry a spread is what we call something that didn’t work. It can have the best ingredients, but if I had a jam that was too runny, I’d slap a label on it and call it a spread. There’s no excuse for this. It should be perfect.’
Ms Collins, who owns Jelly Queens jam company and has won more than 40 world championship honours in jam-making competitions, also queried the ingredients in Meghan’s spread. The jars, sold in keepsake packaging for £10 or plain for £7, list conventionally grown apricots, dried organic apricots, organic pure cane sugar and fruit pectin.
‘Why should she include conventionally grown apricots, which will have used pesticides?’ said Ms Collins. ‘And why is she using pectin, which is a gelling agent, unless it’s because her spread was too runny? Most spreads don’t use pectin.’
Ms Collins added: ‘Her apricot spread sold out in minutes, just like her earlier raspberry spread, which may mean they only made a small batch. I don’t know who’s making her spread, but we all know it’s not Meghan. It sounds like they really don’t know what they are doing.’
Maureen Foley, owner of Red Hen Cannery near Montecito, said she suspected Meghan wanted to make a spread to take advantage of marketing opportunities. ‘She may be smart trying to fill a niche,’ said Ms Foley. ‘Spreads can be sweet or savoury, and used on dishes for all meals, so perhaps it’s just clever marketing.’
I read this as a huffy tantrum from the Mail, not from whatever “champion jam maker” they dug up. The British tabloids did the same thing back in April with the raspberry spread – they looked for any angle they could find to say that the spread was terrible and that people were disappointed with this or that. They missed the fact that everyone who actually tried the spread really loved it, even the blind taste-testers at the Times of London. In any case, “The Jelly Queens” Instagram – which seems to be the account of Donna Collins – has now posted a denial that they said any of this to the Mail. Would the Mail completely falsify a jam-queen’s quotes? Or did Donna Collins realize too late that she came across really poorly?
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, As Ever’s IG, Jelly Queen’s IG.
