Est. 1991
Heritage & History
Jonathan King and Jim Stott started Stonewall Kitchen in 1991 the way countless small food businesses have started: at a farmers' market, with a folding table and homemade product. The Portsmouth, New Hampshire farmers' market where King and Stott first sold their jams and condiments gave them immediate feedback on what consumers valued — and what they valued was all-natural ingredients, distinctive flavor combinations, and honest labeling in an era when specialty food options were still limited. The market response was strong enough to build a real business.
The company relocated to York, Maine, where it established its production facility and company store, and began expanding its product line beyond jams to include compound butters, grilling sauces, mustards, syrups, marinades, and baking mixes. Stonewall Kitchen won multiple Specialty Food Association awards, including Outstanding Product Line — recognition from the specialty food industry that validated the quality King and Stott had been building since the farmers' market days. The brand's Wild Maine Blueberry Jam, made from wild blueberries harvested from Maine's coastal barrens, became its most iconic product: a direct expression of New England's agricultural heritage in a jar.
Made in York, Maine
Stonewall Kitchen produces its full range of specialty foods at its facility in York, Maine, the southern Maine coastal community that has been the brand's home since Jonathan King and Jim Stott established the company there in the early 1990s. The York facility handles production of the brand's entire line — from fruit preserves and jams to barbecue sauces, pancake mixes, and drink mixers — using all-natural ingredients with no artificial preservatives, flavors, or colors.
The Wild Maine Blueberry Jam production illustrates the Maine facility's sourcing relationships. Wild Maine blueberries — smaller, more intensely flavored, and more nutritionally dense than cultivated blueberries — are harvested from the low-bush blueberry barrens of coastal Maine and Down East, a region that produces one of the most distinctively flavored fruits in American agriculture. The York facility processes these wild berries at harvest peak, preserving their flavor with minimal intervention. Stonewall Kitchen's company store and culinary education center in York connect the brand's consumers directly to the Maine production facility, making the York location not just a factory but the embodiment of the brand's New England specialty food identity.
