Please help me TIPTREE JAM to stay in Tiptree

oops, was a bit too passionate, got title page totally wrong, I have asked if it can be corrected, should read "Please help TIPTREE JAM to stay in Tiptree"

We can cope with the title, pompa. why is the council refusing permission to build the houses? Would they be on a flood plain, for instance, or on green belt land?

Hello Pompa I used to live in Witham just down the road from tiptree and enjoyed many an afternoon tea in their tearoom plus pick your own strawberrries in Tiptree. As you say the jam factory is a local institution and the council are being very difficult over a straightforward matter. it is a nice country area but its not a National park or anything like that and employment round their is not exactly plentiful so yes I will sign the petition. Good Luck

The houses would be on the site of the existing factory, not a flood plain etc. atm, there is supposed to be a hold on further development due to lack of sewerage capacity, but so many small developers are managing to by-pass this restriction, it is ridiculous to prevent the only major employer in the village from building. The sewage capacity has to be upgraded soon, and we want to see Tipree Jam's application at the top of the list.

Where would the new factory be?

I'm all for traditional companies carrying on where they began and providing local employment and Tiptree jam is lovely, but I don't feel it is a simple black and white issue.

I had a look at the Tiptree website and their facebook page and their questionnaire. There is not much information but I surmise that Tiptree Jams want to raise the funds to build a new factory by building (and presumably selling) houses on the site where their current factory now is. There are several questions that spring to mind about this.

1. Is there any guarantee that the new factory would be built at Tiptree? Think Cadbury — promises broken, or so it seems.

2. Would the company be willing to speed up the process by offering to pay for some of the needed sewage development? Would seem like a good investment and perhaps further their cause.

3. Where would the jam-making happen in the meantime? Does the company anticipate having a new factory ready before the old one is pulled down?

I like question 3. In my opinion, the most important one.

What a lot of questions, I'm not sure I know all the answers, I hope to find out more when they have the public exhibition later this month.

1. If they get the go ahead from the council for the housing + factory package I am totally sure the new factory will be built just a little further from where it is now. In the 1980's the Wilkin family who started and solely owned the business, past it's ownership, in trust, to it's employees, it is not part of any other group. More about this can be found on their history pages. They have for many years supported the village in so many ways.

2. I don't know the answer to that, but I do know they will do everything they possibly can to stay in the village. I'm sure this has been considered/offered.

3. Yes the new factory would have to be built before the old one is pulled down (some parts of the old factory may be listed and remain I suspect.) Tiptree jam is wholly mad e from fresh fruit, so it has to be a seasonal on going process, to pull down the old factory (their is only one factory) before the new one is ready would be impossible.

FYI, the existing factory is right at the edge of the village, their is already housing adjacent to it.

My spelling and grammar are getting worse - put it down to a 3 hour drive home.

Thanks, pompa. i didn't notice spelling and grammar as I was too busy reading what you said. Thanks for filling in details. That it's an employee-owened company makes a huge difference. I'll read more of the history.

Please keep us updated!

This is a bit of a long winded story, but it is true and sums up Wilkin & Sons attitude to it's employees.
I was at lunch with a rep. from Jonge Poerink a company who we purchased heat treatment conveyors from, when he learnt that I came from Tiptee he told me of his experience a few years before and again that year.
On of the products they made was fruit washing machines, he made an appointment to see Mr Wilkin to discuss his strawberry washer, after tea on the lawn and some discussion, an elderly gentle man was summoned and introduced as the strawberry washer -- end of sales pitch !!. Some years later the rep. was contacted by Mr Wilkin to arrange another appointment to discuss strawberry washers -- the elderly strawberry washer was due to retire . Most Tiptree Jam employees are with them for life.

Did you see Tiptree jams featured on ITV today on '10 mile menu'? I have just watched my recording of the programme and they came across well . No mention of the problems unfortunately.

No we missed that, hope it will be on ITV player. Suspect the programme was made before the discussions started.

Thanks for that heads up Shyshal. We use several of the suppliers in the program, Tiptree Jam (who else), Blackwells and the Company Shed. They should have asked us where to get beef, the farm we use hang their beef for 6 weeks, fantastic (but rather expensive, so for special quests). Still trying to see the end , ITV player keeps crashing 2/3 of the way through.

Our Son's best man is a presenter with BBC local radio. Chatting with him last night, he said they would be interested in our campaign, which would be great, even if they remain non-committal it will give the campaign a wider audience.

With you on this one, pompa. My partner told me about this a week or sao ago, but I'm afraid it went over my head. Maybe someone wants a foreign company to buy it and move it abroad [think Terrys and Cadburys]. Probably not, but I'm sick of these local companies going down, and trust no one these days.

Message deleted by Gransnet.

Thanks for that information; as a company you deserve the co operation of everyone involved. I'm going to make sure that everyone I know buys your jam in preferance to other brands..might not make a huge difference, but, as they say, every little helps. Good luck.

I shall continue to buy my jam from church fetes and Christmas fairs. And then there's the WI market in town. All nice home made stuff.

Message deleted by Gransnet.

We visited the Tiptree Jam exhibition yesterday, very interesting and informative. I was very pleased to see that they had covered the councils main objection, that of sewerage capacity in the village. They propose to either build their own modern sewerage plant that will serve the new factory, all the proposed housing, with spare capacity to cover part of the existing housing on that side of the village, or, they will finance upgrades to the existing Anglian Water system.
They have three concepts for the factory, traditional, modern and contemporary, these can be seen on their Facebook page.
Their appears to be support from most of the villagers, the word on the street is - TIPTREE JAM MUST STAY IN TIPTREE.
I've been there, got the tee shirt (will post a pic of me in it !)

My father loved tiptree black cherry jam and just seeing it on the shelf reminds me- i'm off to buy some today

I love bread and jam.

Tiptree - Have you paid your advertising fee?!

JOSI!!!!