{"id":695871,"date":"2026-05-26T23:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/695871\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T23:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:12:10","slug":"purity-factories-jam-making-jammed-up-because-of-poor-berry-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/695871\/","title":{"rendered":"Purity Factories jam-making jammed up because of \u2018poor\u2019 berry season"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

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Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Tammy Lewis has been searching for Purity jam for nearly a year \u2014 with no luck.<\/p>\n

Every time she\u2019s at the store, Lewis scours the Purity Factories products but she hasn\u2019t seen the jam since last June.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to go all over St. John\u2019s. We went out to C.B.S. Couldn\u2019t find anything,\u201d said Lewis, who lives in Mount Pearl, N.L.<\/p>\n

After months of jam-hunting, Lewis decided to investigate the Purity shortage for herself. Things were getting urgent \u2014 she had to deliver jam to her Purity-yearning mom in Nova Scotia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She emailed Purity Factories and got the bad news. Jam production is jammed up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not been able to produce the two types of jams for the last season due to a poor berry yield,\u201d a Purity Factories staff member said in an email to Lewis.<\/p>\n

\"ATammy Lewis had been searching for Purity jams for nearly a year before learning the company had stopped producing her beloved spread. (CBC)<\/p>\n

Purity Factories confirmed to CBC it stopped producing jams in 2025 \u2014 there weren\u2019t enough berries to make either its blueberry or apple and partridgeberry jam.<\/p>\n

But the company is anticipating a better Newfoundland berry season this year and hope to make jams again in the fall.<\/p>\n

Customers may see jam on the shelves again in September or October, said Tyler Cogswell, who works with the order desk for Purity Factories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The company declined a broadcast interview.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Purity expects a better berry season this year:\"\"<\/p>\n

Purity Factories pauses jam production<\/p>\n

An iconic Newfoundland and Labrador food company has had to stop making its jam. Purity Factories says a poor berry season last year jammed up production. The CBC\u2019s Laura Howells reports.Dry summer harder for berry growing<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s dry summer made it tougher for berry growing, says Philip Thornley, owner of Campbellton Berry Farm in central Newfoundland. His farm does not currently supply berries for Purity.<\/p>\n

Thornley said some of his fields yielded as little as 25 per cent of their typical crop while other fields did well. But “no field was spectacularly good.”<\/p>\n

He had to put in an extensive irrigation network to deal with dry conditions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We were right down to the very last drops in our ponds, but we did manage to squeak through,” he said.<\/p>\n

Purity says it expects a better berry season this year, with jams both on the shelves in September or October. (Michael Mcarthur\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Parts of the province experienced drought conditions and historically low water levels<\/a> last summer, with scientists blaming climate change.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made it harder\u201d to grow his fruits, said Thornley. <\/p>\n

While his own partridgeberries and blueberries weren\u2019t bad, Thornley said farmers can see variations from field to field.<\/p>\n

As for the coming season, Thornley doesn\u2019t know what to expect.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just expect extremes of one form or another,\u201d he said. \u201cPlants don\u2019t like extremes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Homemade ‘may not fill that same void’<\/p>\n

With Purity jams expected back this fall, Lewis says she\u2019ll be monitoring the shelves.<\/p>\n

Her family moved away when she was a child, and Purity jams and syrups were always a nostalgic, reliable-tasting treat from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really good on meatballs,” said Lewis. “We love it on meatballs and we love it on toast.”<\/p>\n

When Lewis visited her mom in Nova Scotia, she planned to bring homemade partridgeberry jam from a local jam-maker. But it \u201cmay not fill that same void in my mom’s heart,\u201d said Lewis, noting her mother usually has about six Purity jams on hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s kind of weird to say,\u201d she said, but \u201csometimes you just don’t want the homemade taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Download our\u00a0free CBC News app<\/a>\u00a0to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our\u00a0daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click\u00a0here to visit our landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-695871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}