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Although many people now know about “Genutė berry” jams, it all started a little differently, when the Sakalauskai family sold fresh berries at the market after moving to the village of Žalgiriai in the Ukmergė district. And to this day, the family stands with their products in the markets and presents their delicacies to the people.
PHOTO GALLERY. The jams produced by Genovaitė take many to childhood
Production only from organic berries
The woman remembers the beginning of agriculture as it is today: the variety of berries on the farm was not great, the berries were sold, and the jam was cooked from the rest. Once everyone closest to us got out of trouble, the family finally realized that it was time to start expanding.
“From the beginning, it all started with gooseberries and raspberries, we planted 10 hectares of gooseberries, a couple of hectares of raspberries. The need to produce jam arose from the fact that we grow berries, we did not sell all the raw materials, they stayed. At the beginning we cook for ourselves, relatives, relatives, and then we think why we don’t start mass production of jams ”, recalls G. Sakalauskienė.
Over time, jams of new flavors appeared, and at the same time, the farm expanded, where, as Genovaitė laughs, all possible berries and fruits grow.
What Genovaitė herself emphasizes the most is that everything that grows on a family farm is organic, and when asked, she says she has never considered a different way of farming.
“Our green economy was even when Lithuania did not join the European Union and there was no support. When I was a student, my husband and I had a small farm, he was organic, certified, then we still lived in Giedraičiai. And here it was ecological from the beginning, nor did we think of anything else. It is already like a way of life ”, smiles the interviewee.
As she herself says, here lies the secret of a good jam: naturally grown berries, grown by the hands of growers, not fertilizers or chemicals:
“The secret is very simple: the jam must be cooked with delicious, organic, clean and chemically grown berries. If there is a good raw material and the jam will be healthy, good and delicious.”
And people also value ecology very much – those who already know Sakalauskas standing in the markets with their products, no doubt come back again and again, and other relatives of regulars come to buy – a good word about the family farm travels. from mouth to mouth .
Never like at grandma’s house
G. Sakalauskienė ensures that the jams they produce are just like their grandmother’s, they do not contain additional preservatives or thickeners, and the range also includes sugar-free jams and purees for small diners.
“We cook berry and sugar jams, we even have such jams, children’s purees, until the mothers give sugar, they boil without sugar, we produce them in autoclaves. Everything is completely natural, just berries and sugar.
Customers come in, ask for sugar-free options, and we try it. And with stevia we tried it, but the taste is fun and not everyone likes it, we tried it in an autoclave and we got it, we made some completely sugar-free options, bought by diabetics who can’t use sugar. We have something to offer, ”said the woman about the range.
In total, the range of “Genutė berries” includes 38 different jams, including not only the usual blueberries, strawberries or raspberries, but also a variety of flavors, created by combining different berries, and gourmets can taste less common flavors :
“We cook both traditional and combined: strawberries are boiled with red currants, very tasty jam, with black currants, raspberries with black currants to diversify the tastes. People like it, they don’t like gooseberries alone, but along with sweet berries they eat deliciously. “
In addition to all this, a new flavor emerges every year. Although this year Sakalauskas has yet to come up with something new to offer his clients, but last year he was surprised by the combination of doubles and chili, which the Lithuanians just grabbed.
In addition to jams, marmalades, purees, as well as juices and syrups, dry products are produced here. Here, this year the farm is full of pumpkin harvest, so you can taste pumpkin sweets.
“We also grow vegetables, but more for processing: we ferment cabbage, we make beets in various ways, we wax in apple juice, we make onion marmalade. We have grown a lot of pumpkins this year, we also make sweets, juices, all kinds of condiments ”, named Genovaitė.
Work has all year
In the range of “Genutė berries”, everyone can find a product that suits their taste and, to get it into the hands of customers, it also requires a lot of hands on the farm. Although the work is more seasonal, G. Sakalauskienė smiles, he has activities throughout the year:
“As we cook jams all year round, we cook frozen berry jams in winter, it fills up all year round.
Of course, most of the workers are needed in the spring, when everything needs to be planted, watered, in the summer, when it is necessary to collect the berries. There are many employees, on average between 10 and 12 people, and during the season there are up to 20. “
It seems that the end of September should be a quieter time when you can take a break from work, but on the Sakalauskai farm work is still in full swing, because next fall is not pleasant, and Genovaitė says that all the year has changed. , and the whole harvest depends on nature.
“Because the weather has not been pampered, September is rainy, it is simply not possible to get into the ground, we are still harvesting, just as the work is not finished.
This year is very interesting: the spring was very cold, we had to wait a long time for the first berries, we only started collecting strawberries in the middle of June, when we were already collecting at the end of May. Everything took about 2 weeks and everything was delayed.
Then the drought, the huge heat, we couldn’t work because people were fainting from the sun. We worked only until 12-13 o’clock, then at night for a while, but it wasn’t very possible either, ”said the interlocutor.
G. Sakalauskienė smiles when he says that the greatest fears about starting this activity were at the beginning, and now everything is on the right track. In the past, a woman was worried about what would happen if someone had a poor product in their hands, but now she has accepted it and people, knowing that everything is natural and ecological, do not make small mistakes:
“I thought about what it would be like here, if the jam goes sour or is put into a mold, the customer would buy one. Since we don’t add preservatives it’s natural, of course mold can grow naturally.
There have been some cases, but people also realize that this is the case, it is human and does not make it a tragedy. Get together. Of course, there are all kinds of little bugs, but it all works out. “
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