Maison Perrotte
Maison Perrotte is a small jam house in Anjou, in France's Loire valley, built around one man: Stéphan Perrotte, a master artisan jam maker who was named best jam maker in France in 2014 and won the world jam championship in 2015. From a workshop that began in a family kitchen, the house now cooks fruit preserves, jellies, chutneys and sweet spreads sold through its Angers boutique, its retail partners and, through Clipperton, in Canada and the United States.
The house
Stéphan Perrotte grew up in the Cotentin, in Normandy, in a family of craftsmen and producers. His grandmothers in Valognes made jam from the blackcurrants, gooseberries and raspberries of their gardens, and he watched them do it. He trained and worked as a baker and pork butcher before turning to fruit: in late 2013 he started making jam in the family kitchen, prompted by a batch of strawberries from a local grower.
The titles came quickly. In 2014 he won the Concours du Meilleur Confiturier de France, and in 2015 the Championnat du Monde de la Confiture, which the house notes makes him the only living French jam maker to hold both. Medals from the Concours Général Agricole, Great Taste awards in 2022 and a Gault & Millau listing followed. In June 2022 the house opened its first boutique in Angers.
His approach is simple to state and hard to do: fruit and sugar, cooked slowly in copper pots, with more fruit and less sugar than the norm. He seeks out rare or forgotten varieties, works with named growers, and builds recipes in layers so that flavors arrive one after another rather than all at once. The house describes itself as a small family; its work supports six families in the region.
What they make
The Clipperton range covers the classics, the single-variety fruit jams the chef is known for, a pâtissier line created with the magazine Fou de Pâtisserie that puts French desserts into jars, savory chutneys, and spreads.
- Dream Strawberry Jam – a single variety, hand-harvested in La Baule-Escoublac.
- Mango & Passion Fruit Jam – gold medal at the Concours Général Agricole in 2015.
- Tarte Tatin Jam – caramelized apple and salted butter caramel, from the Confiture Pâtissière range.
- Apple, Salted Butter Caramel & Calvados Jam – a nod to the chef's native Cotentin, made with PDO cider.
- Fig, Onion & Pepper Chutney – 60% fig, for foie gras, terrines and cheese.
See the full Maison Perrotte collection, including the Lemon Jam made with Menton lemons, the Bigarade Orange Jam, the Dulce de Leche made with organic Normandy milk, chocolate spreads and the miniature-jar gift boxes.
Why Clipperton chose them
Clipperton is a family business, and we buy directly from the makers we carry. We wanted a jam that tastes of the fruit first, and Maison Perrotte does that without compromise: named growers, named varieties, slow cooking, and a chef who is still at the pot. It is also a house small enough that we know the people behind every jar. If you want to know why we think jam like this changes breakfast, we wrote about it in our Journal: Why French artisan jams transform breakfast.
