18-year-old signs jam deal with Tesco

Edinburgh, Scotland -- A Scottish teenager has parlayed his grandmother's jam recipe into a deal with the supermarket chain Tesco.

Fraser Doherty, 18, of Edinburgh combines an old-fashioned recipe with a modern concern for nutrition, using "super fruits" like blueberries and cranberries. Two years ago, he was making the preserves in his family's kitchen and selling about 100 jars a month at farmer's markets.

"If, as a 14-year-old, I had said to somebody, by the age of 18 I would have a company selling jam in big high-street stores, they would have thought I was mad," he told The Scotsman.

Doherty's Preserves already had one big chain as a customer, Waitrose. Doherty expects to sell 40,000 jars a month through Tesco.

The young entrepreneur has other expansion plans, including adding new varieties of fruit to the line and creating a line of small pots of jam for hotels. He has also been tapped to represent Britain at the Global Student Entrepreneurs Awards in Chicago next month.

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