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Boddington's has been in business in Mevagissey, Cornwall since 1946 and now involves the fourth generation.
Our strawberries are still growing here in Mevagissey under the Cornish sun. If you would like more details about our fresh strawberries, please visit our Boddington's Berries site.
Below is a timeline that shows all of our big milestones across our 80 years of being in business.
In the Farm Shop & Deli Show 2024 product awards; The Strawberry Conserve won GOLD & The Chilli Jam also won GOLD.
Then to top off this acheivement, all 3 of our new 2024 flavours all won in the 2025 product awards; GOLD for The Apricot Conserve, GOLD for The Blackcurrant Conserve and BRONZE for The Cherry Conserve!
Preserves side of the business became a limited company trading as Boddington's Preserves. This included new labels, a new product (Chilli Jam) & a new website.
2023 also marked out first Great Taste Star! Which had to be our classic; The Strawberry Conserve. The Chilli Jam also won SILVER in the Great British Food Awards.
Phil's son, Will, returned to the family business as the fourth generation, bringing with him experience from the Mechanical Design Engineering sector. Carrying on the family heritage, he is dedicated to blending tradition with innovation to drive Boddington’s Preserves forward.
Christmas range introduced.
Developed The Red Onion Relish, again due to customer request.
We refined our label design to better reflect the quality of our preserves. We introduced elegant gold strips at the top and bottom, along with a varnished finish, giving our jars a more premium look and feel.
Creation of The Apple Chutney following a customer request - the first branch out from sweet-based products.
Invested in a rotary filling and sealing machine – Sweet Preserves offered in plastic 28g individual portions with a foil lid. In 2010 we also invested in a new labelling line - no more labelling by hand!
Added individual portion breakfast jars
to the product list and also started cooking Orange Marmalade.
Invested in an electric cooker, moved away from the gas burners and small pans, and started cooking in 35kg batches at a time, rather than 1.5kg! Also bought a ‘depositor’ to help with filling the jars.
Supermarkets increasingly saw strawberries as a commodity crop. It was becoming too expensive to sell to supermarkets so we reduced growing crop size to only sell locally, and moved the jam production into the packhouse.
Introduced the Raspberry and Blackberry Conserves.
Played with the notion of ‘all things strawberry’, adding mint, cider, mead, and sparkling wine as limited edition versions of the jam via collaborations from other local producers including freeze-drying the fruit and creating a Strawberry Wine and Strawberry Liqueur.
Developed the brand "Boddingtons Berries" with new logo and first label designs and Kilner jars were introduced.
Louise Boddington made a batch of 340g Strawberry Conserve jars in the farmhouse. Mrs Boddington was on the way to display these in the pick-your-own shop that we had at the time. She had barely covered 100 yards before all the Strawberry Conserve had been sold to pick your own customers in the car park, never making it to the shop. This was the moment Boddington’s diversified into jams and our picking supervisor, Jeff, became the chef (fitting as his initials are ‘J.A.M’!).
Phil and his wife Louise took over the ownership of the business and began selling strawberries direct into stores with our own label.
Richard’s son Phil returned to the business following horticulture training and extensive travel and experience gained in America, Australia, and the UK. Over the next decade, the farm produced over 200 tons of fruit a year, and was the biggest
fruit grower in Cornwall.
Richard began to
expand the growing area and started to supply the supermarkets.
Began to specialise in strawberries through the 70s and 80s, growing fruit for local markets and running a thriving pick-your-own (PYO) enterprise.
William's son Richard joined the partnership, growing tomatoes, Chrysanthemums and strawberries.
It all began when William Boddington opened a market garden in fields above Mevagissey, just after the Second World War, growing fruit, vegetables, and flowers. William was from a farming background in Oxfordshire, he had arrived in the village some years before as a sea cadet at the age of 16, married a local girl and stayed.
