Behind the Scenes: A look at how we create our detailed labels

Back in 1991, when Jim and Jonathan headed to their first Farmers' Market in Portsmouth, NH to sell their first jars of jams and marmalade they spent hours hand writing all of the labels the night before.  Now, more than 20 years later our labels are still created in a similar fashion; at least the first one is before going to print.

The process of creating our labels is not nearly as simple as it appears when you're looking at in on the shelf in your local store. Have you ever really looked closely at the beautiful images found on our labels?  Those are hand sketched by our extremely talented Senior Graphic Designer, Melissa.  Not only does she hand sketch each botanical on our labels, she also helps to paint a lot of the packaging you see in the stores, such as the wraps you see on our candles.


Yes, these are ALL hand painted!

And the product name you see?  Those are all still hand written by owner and founder, Jonathan.  If you look closely at our products you'll notice that they are not all exactly the same.  He obviously no longer writes each and every one, but he does write the first version which is then transferred onto the labels for design and printing.

When a new product is approved for production (you can read about our approval process here) Melissa gets started on any botanical that will be on the label, while Jonathan gets to work writing out a few versions to pick from.

Melissa sketching a botanical that will go on one of our new products launched in January 2013

This botanical will go on a label, often as an accent behind the product name, or on the side panel.

Jonathan submits a few versions of each product and selects which one should go on the packaging

Here is an example of a completed label.  Notice the beautiful image in the background, and the hand written text.

As mentioned previously, a lot of our packaging is also hand painted as well;

Using real fruit as a guide, Melissa was able to create this fantastic packaging that is currently being used for our Toast and Jam Gift.

Final Product

It is always amazing to see the time and effort that goes into each and every product we place on our shelves and we are lucky to have such an amazing team that pulls together each detail necessary for the final product.  Next time you are enjoying our product, be sure to take a close look and enjoy the small details along with the quality taste.

Behind the Scenes in our Cooking School - designing our classes

It is a warm, drizzly spring day. The cold weather greens in my garden are finally mature enough to harvest: arugula, spinach and mesclun. Pea tendrils curl up from the darkened earth, reaching up to grab their wire trellis and I’ve finally taken the cold frame off the tomatoes, exposing them to the warmer nights and sunshine-filled days. Birds sing hopefully, looking for mates while my family plans the chicken coop for the new spring flock. And what am I thinking of? Snow.

Or at least, barren trees accompanied by a late Fall harvest: acorn squash, cranberries, apples, turkey…It’s true – while the rest of the northern hemisphere is having thoughts of warm weeks to come, I’m planning for Autumn and the holiday season. It is menu-writing time for Third Quarter at Stonewall Kitchen Cooking School.

The Cooking School was started by Jim and Jonathan because they wanted to create a place where people could come, enjoy a meal and want to come back again. So far, their idea is working. Since the school was started four years ago, we have had thousands of classes and taught tens of thousands of people. I am lucky to have been involved in the school for the past year. Cooking for and feeding people comes from deep inside me and sometimes I cannot believe that I actually get paid to do it!

Course catalogs are published on a quarterly basis. Started months in advance, in-house instructors and visiting chefs alike prepare their menus and turn them in for scheduling and several rounds of review within the company. Keeping this information in mind, this means that I am currently teaching classes with menus I dreamt up in February. While snow was flying, I was thinking of coleslaw,tomatoes and grilled everything.

So now the converse is happening. I am tasked with creating 2 menus per week for 4 months. Even my faulty math knows this means a daunting 32 complete menus. First step is to remember what Fall and Winter feel like. I go through my iPhoto library and look at pictures I’ve taken over the years of wintery New England landscapes, holidays spent with my family, images of food that I’ve cooked. I then go to my cookbook shelves and start to pull some down, stacking them next to my computer. I pore over them, dog-earing

pages that give me ideas, making notes in my notebook, revising recipes in my head. What would people like to eat? What types of classes have we had requests for? What can I prepare that would make a good class: something delicious and soul satisfying, a menu that inspires people to cook at home, perfect for entertaining.

All of these thoughts are in my head as I write down possibilities, scratch them out, start all over. I know my deadline is Friday - and so far I’ve only created 12.

And I realize I’ve got a class coming up that I need to prepare for - but that is another blog entry all together.

Stonewall Kitchen's Super Bowl Playbook

With all this talk around here about the “big game” on Sunday we thought it would be fun for you to see how we go from idea to execution for our emails and website photos.

We, of course are rooting for the home team, The New England Patriots but have not confirmed our plans for Sunday night, yet. It will most likely be a game-time decision, which is easily accomplished with our quick and easy options for throwing a party together in under two hours!

The Play by Play

Before you can purchase any Stonewall Kitchen items a lot of behind the scenes work must happen.

First and foremost of course, is the idea for a new product, which comes from Jim Stott and Jonathan King, owners of Stonewall Kitchen. Our test kitchen then creates several variations of the product which our tasting team evaluates. After several evaluations, to make sure we produce the best possible product, we are ready for production. A lot more goes into this of course, but we are going to jump to the recipe development.

Kim is our recipe developer. She develops the recipes which appear on the sides of some of our product jars, like our simmering sauces and she also creates recipes for each and every product which appear on our website, on recipe cards, and recipe booklets. Kim also cooks the food for all of our photo shoots and in her spare-time she teaches class in our cooking school.

To get ready for our Super Bowl themed photo shoot, Kim set up four different stations in the kitchen, and neatly organized all the ingredients based on the four different recipes she choose: Our Guacamole Spice Mix, Buffalo Wing Sauce, Three-Bean Chili using our Sloppy Joe Sauce and our Cornbread Mix.

Kim shared some quick cooking tips with us which made preparation and clean-up so much easier.

Place parchment paper in your baking pan and spray it with cooking spray before you pour your baking mix in, this allows you to simply lift the corn bread out of the pan, no need to gauge the pan while trying to cut pieces out and it also makes for a quick clean-up.

  Use a spoon to scoop out the core of a jalapeno for effortless prep.

Cut an avocado in half, remove the pit, and then cut the rest of the avocado into squares to turn an otherwise messy job into a neat and easy way for preparing guacamole.

After all the food is cooked, baked and prepared it is time to deliver it to our photo studio.

This is where Michael, our photographer, and Cynthia,our stylist, prepare the scene to be photographed. Cynthia picks the props, and positions things just right so Michael can capture the scene. Once the photos are complete, Michael sends them around for review.

Once the photo is given the “go” our web designer, Ted, creates an email using copy from our copywriter, Nina. And often Kim’s recipes are linked to the email as well.

Super Bowl email picture appearing in your in-box soon

The emails then get sent out. You can sign-up here: email sign-up if you would like to receive our bi-weekly emails.

Sometimes we use the photos for other portions of our website or for promotional materials.

Cheers!  We hope you enjoy your own Super Bowl party!