Coopers Flock

Who doesn’t love warm toast with butter and homemade strawberry jam! Here in Wisconsin, strawberry season is in the summer. That doesn’t stop us from spring strawberries though! Amber (best friend and Coopers Flock partner) and I have ordered strawberries from a fruit truck the past few years. The strawberries are from Florida and SO perfect! And timing couldn’t be better. March here is when we start to get pretty antsy. Some seeds can be started inside, but chances are there is still snow outside.

This year we ordered 240 pints (or 30 flats) and it was $930. Going in with a friend really helps! We went big for a few reasons. We wanted enough strawberries and jam to last our families for 1 year. We love smoothies and strawberries! This year, we also decided to try to cover some of the cost by making enough jam to sell. It was for sure a family affair!

Once you have the strawberries, the clock starts ticking! Strawberries can turn bad quick so you don’t want to waste any time. The kids were in charge of hulling and cutting. Overall they did a great job! The girls, although younger, took more time to check the berries and waste less. We definetly let them take more turns than the boys!

Recap…get your strawberries, hull and cut them. Next step is to smoosh!! Wash when you want. We wash after cutting to help remove any leaves left on the berries.

We mashed the cut strawberries in big plastic bins. I love these bins! My husband got me 6 of them for me and they really get used. We then smashed with 2 utensils. We tried the Pampered Chef mix and chop and my grandmas potato masher. Reviews were mixed, use whatever you find works best for you. After they were mashed pretty well, we used an immersion blender to puree them. You do not have to do this! We just perfer our jam smooth instead of chunky. I love spreading it evenly on warm toast..mmmmmmm….

We used less sugar Sure Jell. There is a remarkable about of sugar in jam. Even using less sugar Sure Jell, you still add a whopping 4 cups of sugar to 6 cups of strawberry! Following the directions from the pectin for cooked jam, we cooked and canned for 3 days! Lets break it down…

Measure 4 cups of sugar

From the 4 cups already measured, take 1/4 cup of sugar and mix with the Sure Jell in a small bowl

In a pot, mix the 6 cups strawberry with the small bowl of Sure Jell and 1/4 cup sugar

Bring it to boil and than add the rest of the sugar

Bring back to a boil for 1 minute

Now it’s cooked! Skim the foam off the top and add to hot jars. Each batch gave us 9 half pint jars.

Process in water batch for 10 minutes.

You really need to make sure you clean the rims of the jars and to not overfill. This will help ensure that the jars will seal.

This is a cost break down for our spring 2023 jam. It isn’t exact, but hopefully it will give you an idea.

• $930 for strawberries
• $42 sugar (Bought at Costco and used about 50lbs, still have some left over)
• $92.72 for 1/2 pint jars (We already had some jars but purchased about 100)
• $41.88 for lids (Again, had some. Make sure you use new lids)
• $55.84 for Sure Jell (1 package is used for every 9 1/2 pints. We did have some left over from last summer as well)
• TOTAL COST: $1162.44

While our cost isn’t exact this is what we are going by for setting a price for jam. The cost of the 200 jars we made is $5.67. We do still have quite a bit in the freezer and are going to can again in a few weeks to see if we can get 100 more jars done. That will be a cost of $3.87 per jar. That is about were we need to be to make our money back and have some extra to treat the kids with a special day if we sell them at $5/jar. For info on how to purchase visit the Services page or click here.

Questions and comments are always welcome. What are your favorite jams to make? What are your favorite things to do with strawberries? Can’t wait to hear from you!