NO phone signal, temperamental WiFi connection and entire miles without any neighbours – it’s not the ideal scenario to set up a business, but it’s worked for Rachel Kettlewell.
The mum-of-three, 40, runs Fearne & Rosie, which was last year declared the fastest growing jam brand in the UK and is set to turn over a staggering £2 million this year.
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Rachel lives in the most rural part of England in the Yorkshire Dales.
And despite not being able to take phone calls from her house and not having strong enough WiFi for Zoom calls, her business is a roaring success.
The former primary school teacher is on a mission to make Fearne & Rosie the UK’s most loved and trusted jam brand by making the fruity spread healthy again.
She set up the business in 2019 after feeling disappointed by soaring sugar content in other jams available in the supermarket,
The business was inspired by her children – Fearne, 10, Rosie, eight, and George, five – and Rachel’s drive to make healthy food accessible to all children, particularly those from underprivileged backgrounds.
“It’s the vulnerable children in society that go to school without a healthy breakfast,” she tells Fabulous for our exclusive series, Bossing It.
“I could see there was a problem with that, and I thought it was quite obvious someone needed to make a healthier choice.
“Then when I had my children, I learned about food in a different way, which further strengthened my belief that there was an opportunity to provide a healthier jam choice for families.”
Rachel is on a mission to create readily-available healthier breakfast choices for children and their families, and to reduce the amount of sugar consumed in households.
When she set up Fearne & Rosie in 2019, her husband Andrew, 40, was already running his own chutney business, so she knew the basics of recipes.
Rachel began making her own jams from their kitchen, and would take them with her to baby groups for her youngest, five-year-old George, and ask her mum-friends to try the recipes and let her know their thoughts.
Once she had the tastes and textures nailed down, Rachel began selling the jams to farmshops across the Yorkshire Dales and sharing her recipes on Instagram.
But with a bigger dream to land Fearne & Rosie in supermarkets, still in 2019, Rachel googled ‘Waitrose head office’ and rang the first number she found.
She pitched her one-of-a-kind jam with no concentrates and 40% less sugar to the woman on the other end of the line, who turned out to be the receptionist.
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When the receptionist told Rachel she needs to speak to a buyer, she recalls thinking: “What’s a buyer?”
Hundreds more Google searches and countless phone calls later, Fearne & Rosie finally made it into Waitrose stores – a staggering 180 of them – in the same year it launched.
Making those phone calls wasn’t easy, though, given Rachel lives in a remote pocket of countryside in North Yorkshire.
“Where I live, there isn’t any phone signal,” she says. “And there’s limited WiFi in our house, so you couldn’t do a Zoom call or anything like that.
Where I live, there isn’t any phone signal. And there’s limited WiFi in our house, so you couldn’t do a Zoom call…That is a challenge. Where we are is very rural
Rachel Kettlewell
“That is a challenge – where we are is very rural.”
Rachel continued to teach part time alongside raising her three children and running her jam brand.
However, she took a step back from the classroom in 2021 for a sabbatical but never returned.
“I always said I wouldn’t learn Fearne & Rosie impact teaching, as teaching came first at that time,” she tells. “I stayed in my school for a long time, as I really loved it.
It’s the vulnerable children in society that go to school without a healthy breakfast. I could see there was a problem with that, and I thought it was quite obvious someone needed to make a healthier choice
Rachel Kettlewell
“But as the business grew, it got to a point where teaching was impacting Fearne & Rosie.”
This then led to the brand achieving a £550,000 fund raise, with investment from FMCG industry leaders Giles Brook, Oliver Lloyd and Pip Murray, along with VC backing from Twinkl educational publishers in July 2023.
As far as awards go, Fearne & Rosie landed at number 53 in the Startup 100 list, while Rachel herself scooped Purpose Entrepreneur of the year at the GBEAs.
However, the business owner is keen to stress that Fearne & Rosie wasn’t an overnight success – it was something she was plugging away from on her phone in the early days.
The past 12 months has seen the brand secure nationwide distribution with Asda and Co-op, increasing Fearne & Rosie from 300 stores to over 3,000 stores within six months.
Its other stockings include Waitrose (thanks to that fateful 2019 phone call), Tesco and Holland & Barrett.
Rachel’s ultimate goal is to get her jams into school breakfast clubs, and Fearne & Rosie being the healthiest on the market is her first step towards that.
With around 70% fruit per jar, Fearne & Rosie jams are HFSS compliant (meaning they’re officially low sugar) and contain only natural ingredients, and never anything from concentrate.
The entrepreneur has plans to expand into another category in the coming year, to further make healthy breakfast options available for all children.
