Discover the secrets of a unique traditional strawberry jam making !

What would be a breakfast or a snack in the French way, without jam? Among the favorite flavors of the consumers, the inescapable one still remains the traditional strawberry jam.

Do you know that at Andrésy Confitures, there is not one but many strawberry jams? All excellent and all different!

Produced in an artisanal way and always with a concern of the excellence of the tastes, the colors and the textures, the manufacture of our jams of strawberries is the result of our experience. A precious and always renewed heritage!

How does the manufacturing of a traditional strawberry jam at Andrésy Confitures take place? What makes it so unique? We deliver you a little of our heritage!

Why is the selection of the strawberries a crucial step?

Before the preparation, there is the selection. To make artisanal strawberry jam, you must first select good strawberries.

Did you know that not all strawberries are made for jam?

At Andrésy Confitures in any case, we have many quality criteria!

You must have noticed that there are several varieties of strawberries, more than thirty: Gariguette, Charlotte, Mariguette, Maestro, Mara des bois, Mount Everest, Manille, Magnum and many more, but in all that which to choose?

Thanks to more than 70 years of experience, Andrésy confitures has chosen 3 very specific varieties of strawberries for their remarkable qualities in jam:

– the Camarosa : naturally sweet with a fruity taste and a light red color inside and bright red outside

– the Senga : a strawberry with dark red jam inside and outside, quite fruity and sweet, rather small size

– Dordogne Périgord: a strawberry sometimes cultivated with a Protected Geographical Indication in the south of France and which has a balanced taste between fruity and sweet

What are our criteria for the selection of strawberries to make our traditional strawberry jams?

The quality and the taste of our jams would not be the same if we did not pass by an extremely demanding sourcing stage. For us, Andrésy Confitures, it is one of the most important stages, it is essential. We have established very strict specifications of selection!

Our strawberries come mainly from Périgord and Dordogne. It is there that we have found the best French strawberries.

To guarantee that we always have very sweet and ripe strawberries, we carry out several controls as soon as we receive them in our workshops:

– the “technical” control: we check that the supplier’s data sheet corresponds to our requirements of brix – sugar content of the strawberry – which indicates its natural degree of maturity. But also to check that the strawberries are the right size, in general we prefer the small strawberries that we find whole on the bread!

– the second control is the gustative one, a pleasure! We taste the strawberries to validate all the organoleptic or color criteria that cannot be measured with tools or numbers.

Of course these controls are done at each reception of strawberries (and for all the other fruits too !)

How do we guarantee the production of our artisanal strawberry jam all year long ?

Our biggest harvests take place from the month of May, in France or in Europe. Impossible to collect everything, to transport everything and to cook everything in a sufficiently short time to guarantee an optimal quality for each of our customers for all the year!

It’s blocking the ripe strawberries for use as they come in that allows us to meet your needs year-round.

So to ensure that the strawberries are picked when they are ripe, neither under- nor over-ripe, they are harvested as they are picked and then fixed in their development, at the best time, by passing them through a freezing tunnel.
In addition, of course, they are stemmed and checked.

Freezing allows us to meet your needs all year round, with the attention and care necessary for the success of your production of traditional strawberry jam

How is made the traditional strawberry jam at Andrésy Confitures? 

Andrésy Confitures had the chance to inherit an experience and an expertise which last since 3 generations. We have experimented many recipes, utensils and ways of cooking jams. We have chosen an old-fashioned cooking process that allows us to satisfy not only our requirements but also yours and your customers’!

• Our strawberries are steamed in copper cauldrons, gently, in small quantities and with cane sugar.
• First we let them blanch in the pan. Then we add the sugar and stir to achieve a perfect osmosis between the fruits, their juice and the cane sugar.
• Once the strawberries are perfectly blended, we stop cooking.

Would you believe that we have between 10 and 20 different strawberry jam recipes each year?

No: a strawberry jam is not equivalent to another one!

How does Andrésy Confitures vary the recipes of strawberry jams ?

The strawberry jam is in the top three of the favorite jams in Europe. Then to offer a maximum of choice to our customers while remaining in the theme of the strawberry, we vary several cursors as :

• The variety of strawberries: from one variety of strawberries to another we get a different taste, that’s why we sometimes mix two varieties of strawberries to get a balance of taste.
• Different associations of strawberries with other ingredients: such as strawberry tonka bean, strawberry rhubarb, strawberry yuzu or strawberry hibiscus, strawberry clementine, etc.   
• The texture of the jam: by playing on the cooking times, the natural gelling, or even working from strawberry puree
• the color: the more or less red varieties of strawberries will give very different colors of jams, the mixtures with other fruits can darken or lighten the jam
• The quantity of fruit: depending on whether you want an extra jam with 50% strawberries, or a fruit preparation with 65% strawberries, or a recipe of your own!

You suddenly feel like eating a traditional strawberry jam?

You can order our recipes or ask us to create one more for you!

Want to work with the french jam maker who makes organic his commitment?

Consult our catalog and be at the rendez-vous of your customers’ expectations!