Messenger - Vol. 3, No. 4, Page 25 Summer 1994 Alumni Profile: Rowena's wonderful jam and jelly factory When Rowena Jaap Fullinwider, Delaware '60, started her jelly and jam business 11 years ago in Norfolk, Va., she knew nothing about running a company. At that point, her expertise lay in creating unique food products that delighted friends. Today, her company, Rowena's Inc., sells gourmet foods in all 50 states, places its products on a few select, international shelves and publishes its own retail catalog. It employs 16 people year-round and 50 during the last quarter of the year to handle the holiday rush. Graduating from UD with a degree in chemistry and biology, Fullinwider worked as a medical technologist until 1990, when she decided to focus full attention on her thriving gourmet foods business. Her business began in a gradual way. Active in her community, she donated almond pound cake, jams and jellies for fund-raising projects by the Girl Scouts, her children's schools, her church and other area activities. Friends started making special requests, offering to pay the "Jelly Lady" for her creations. Fullinwider turned down those offers until one persuasive acquaintance asked to sell the jams and jellies in her gift store. At first, Fullinwider rented certified kitchens to produce the goods, but that arrangement soon posed logistical problems. At a crossroads, she had to decide whether to call it quits or take the plunge into a full-fledged business venture. She took the plunge. In 1983, she incorporated, found an old warehouse and hired two people-one to handle the accounting and another to help create the products. "That first day, we stood there and said, 'What do we do now?' We just started up. We burnt cakes. The jar-filling machine threw barbecue sauce all over the ceiling. Everything that could go wrong did. It was my lack of experience," she says. For seven years after she opened the business, she worked at the jelly factory by day and as a medical technologist at night. Part of that time, she was a single parent with three children. "My biggest weakness was a lack of formalized financial training. I didn't even have a credit card in my name. I took a course in accounting, and I hired people to help me in my weak areas," Fullinwider says. On a tight budget, she hand-wrote letters of introduction because she didn't have a typewriter. At the start, the company produced the Wonderful Almond Pound Cake, Carrot Jam (still its biggest-selling jam) and Lemon Curd, along with a few other jams it no longer makes. That first Christmas, Fullinwider included in her cards a two-sheet catalog of her products. That, she says, was the beginning of the current retail catalog. Today, Rowena's Inc. makes about 30 gourmet food products, including jams, sauces, pound cakes, fruit curds and mixes, such as Sally Lund spoonbread and shortbread. All food names are preceded by adjectives-Heavenly Curry Sauce, Devilish Mustard Sauce, Wonderful Pound Cake. The company's products are marketed as specialty gift items, with labels and packages designed by an in-house artist and graphic designer. About 3,000 stores nationwide carry the company's products, including Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's. Rowena's was one of the first companies to receive a license from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to re-create and market authentic 18th-century foods. After extensive experimentation, Fullinwider abandoned a costly mushroom ketchup and lemon pickle sauce and reproduced seven other items, including cake made with caraway seeds and a tart poor man's sauce adapted from a 1759 recipe. Fullinwider, who works six days a week, says her favorite part of the business is the energy she derives from dealing with people. Traveling four to six months a year, she says she thrives on the interaction with customers she meets at gourmet specialty shows across the country. She has published a children's story-cookbook called The Adventures of Rowena and the Wonderful Jam and Jelly Factory, a semi- autobiographical story that centers around a 9-year-old tomboy named Rowena who brings an old factory to life. The cookbook, community work, business activities...Fullinwider says she loves it all. Are there any drawbacks? "I would like to get more sleep," she says. -Marylee Sauder, Delaware '83