Yellow Jaw Sorrel Jam – A Product of Jacintoville
There has been a number of new businesses that popped up over the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many were online and focused on the use of technology. But one business in the south – although small – is finding its way into supermarkets. It’s the brainchild of Julian Fisher, who fell in love with southern Belize decades ago and made Jacintoville his home. Birthed during COVID pandemic, Yellow Jaw Sorrel Jam is planning to expand its production using traditional methods of production. In this week’s episode of Belize On Reel, News Five’s Duane Moody travel south.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Wine, or any beverage made from sorrel, is traditionally linked to the Christmas season. It is enjoyed primarily inside homes – eaten with a slice of white cake or used as a substitute for the Ruby Rich wine used to wet and preserve your black fruit cake over time for that perfect bite. In southern Belize, one entrepreneur has been developing a sorrel business over the past few years.
Julian Fisher
Julian Fisher, C.E.O./Owner, Yellow Jaw Ltd.
“The name comes from the largest most vicious snake in the district down here, the yellow-jaw tommygoff. When we came in here this was a hundred percent bush and we had to take a few of them out – one of which was about twenty-feet so we thought it was an appropriate name for the business. We got into the soursop business about three four years ago and then we realise that it takes too long to produce a fruit to make it economical for us to be viable. So we got into the sorrel. If you can see there is a lot of hibiscus around here – the sorrel is one of a member of the hibiscus family, but it’s the one that fruits.”
Located in Jacintoville, Toledo, Yellow Jaw Limited was created less than a year before the COVID pandemic hit and, through networking with residents from the community, a small sorrel farm on Julian Fisher’s property was harvested and used to create jam, cookies and tea.
Julian Fisher
“We started with one sorrel bush, three years ago. Two years ago, we got it up to about a hundred and ten. Last year we had four hundred and fifteen trees, this year on this particular track that we’ve just harvested, we have four thousand trees. That allows us now instead of just sell the fruit. We sell our own product line. We’re making Yellow Jaw Jungle Jam Sorrel, we are making Yellow Jaw Jungle Cookies and we are making Yellow Jaw Jungle hot tea.”
Sorrel, also called common sorrel or garden sorrel, is a perennial, herbaceous plant. It is also referred to as spinach dock and narrow-leaved dock. It is a widespread plant in grassland habitats and is often cultivated as a leafy vegetable or herb. Harvesting sorrel is labor intensive and time consuming, but it provides employment for residents from neighbouring villages.
Marcelino Yatz
Marcelino Yatz, Farmer
“Take out the leaf and right there put it one side and the seed put it one side so that it get dry. And after that, dehn got some more seed for next year. Four people help me and we start to pick two bucket, three bucket each.”
Duane Moody
“And after unu done pick it, what you do with it?”
Marcelino Yatz
“Measure how much pound dehn have there – like twenty pound, thirty pound – and then my boss man ker it and sell it dah town.”
Julian Fisher
“These are the two varieties that we grow. We have the traditional red one, but we found a mutated brand on a bush over here on the side of this farm. We took the seeds from this one. It is much tastier, it is double the side and it grows much faster than the red one. So that’s our secret recipe right now, the dark one, and it enhances the jam and all the other product. The day we pick it, we take it to them and they start cooking the jam. One of the things we do that is unique to it is that we cook it over open fires so it gives it the unique flavour – when you taste it – it’s the unique flavour that’s captured everybody in this area this year. We produced five hundred jars and they are all gone.”
Satisfied with the success of his operation thus far, Fisher says that he intends to make it a seasonal product during this time of the year.
Julian Fisher
“They all come into mason jar, sixteen ounce, recyclable because this is a hundred percent off-grid farm. We don’t use any chemicals to grow any of it. We could increase our production if we get into the chemical spraying business, but that’s not what we want to be in. So ours is a hundred percent organic. We plan to expand our line of jams from sorrel to six other flavours annually. When it is in season we will do up to seven different jams a year. Sorrel is popular November/December so we will do the other ones across the year. That is allowed us now that we will be signing a contract soon for nationwide distribution across Belize for next year. The year after, we plan to be in the CARICOM. OPUT.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
