Sharon Griffiths meets... Elspeth Biltoft, who is unstinting in her quest for the perfect pot of jam or pickle.

THE September sun shines in through the windows of the converted barn and onto the rows of jars of jams and chutneys waiting to be labelled. They glow with rich jewel-like colours. And from downstairs comes the faint but comforting smell of jam making - fruit, sugar, spices...

It is all wonderfully wholesome and somehow timeless. Which is just as Elspeth Biltoft likes it.

She runs Rosebud Preserves, producing 20,000 pots of jams, chutneys, jellies and marmalades each month. Every one of the 50 or so products is made as naturally as possible - no additives, preservatives, gelling agents.

"I just want to make something that's as good as the very best home-made," she says. "I'd always made jams and chutneys for friends and family. I was taught by my mother and, in fact, we still use some of her original recipes"

The jams and chutneys sell in all the best places - especially in America where they particular love the natural flavours and the taste of another way of life. It is literally a cottage industry and in the old farm buildings next door to her home near Masham, Elspeth is in the middle of converting another former barn to a state-of-the-art kitchen, freezer and storage area.

There will be some hi-tech equipment - such as her brilliant Italian boiling kettle, which gets very hot, very fast - but basically, everything is made in exactly the same way as you do at home. Only probably better.

Elspeth, a former fashion designer and quality controller who grew up in Swaledale, started the business with her former husband Philip when their three children were very young. "Our youngest was only three years old and, looking back, I can't even remember where I physically put her while I was working," says Elspeth.

Her children, three girls in their late teens and early twenties, are all still at home. "But they're very independent - the result of having a mother who was a businesswoman too."

After divorce in the mid 1990s, Elspeth was left on her own in charge of the business. "I knew I would either go under completely or make the most of the challenge. Luckily, I loved being able to get on with it, so it's worked well."

She's even got a proper administrator now, so she doesn't have to file all her accounts in carrier bags.

When she started out, top quality jams and preserves were unusual and some people were wary of paying the extra price involved. "But times have changed," says Elspeth. "The English were never very interested in food, maybe because the Industrial Revolution cut our ties with the countryside, but that's changing. Many people now want good, simple, natural food, the best they can get."

Although, inevitably, she still has many other roles in Rosebud Preserves - not least, at the moment, supervising building work - she is still regularly in the kitchen actually making jam.

"You can't afford not to be. Things change and alter and you have to be there to see it. A different bit of equipment, a different source of ingredients, can all effect the way things turnout. And if you're not there, not involved, then you don't know and things don't necessarily slip, but they certainly stop getting better.

"We're only a small team, seven of us at the moment and luckily I have great staff, but I still have to be in there. It sounds corny, I know, but when you're making something like this, you're really selling a little bit of yourself."

And when Rosebud Preserves say that some of their ingredients grow wild locally, it means they pick them too.

"Oh yes, weekends and evenings we get everyone who can come, drag in partners, family friends...The season starts with the elderflowers. They are so delicate, go wonderfully with gooseberries but a couple of days' rain and they're ruined and you've missed your chance so you've got to get out while you can. Luckily this year was a really good year for elderflowers, the hedges were full.

"Then there are rowanberries for our Wild Rowan Jelly and finally we've just gathered in the crab apples." And boxes of tiny puckered crab apples are in the storage room to prove it.

"I'm a terrible taskmaster I know," says Elspeth cheerily. "Just another hour, I say, just another tree, as it gets dark."

Arthur, the only man on the team, has been known to say that all that picking has made him lose the will to live, but as he looks remarkably cheerful, we're sure he doesn't mean it.

What they don't pick themselves, they buy as locally as possible. Most of their herbs - the Americans especially love their herb jellies - for instance, come from Sand Hutton, near Thirsk. "And that's another job we're not enthusiastic about - stripping herbs," says Elspeth.

But Rosebud Preserves is very firmly rooted in the country. The workshop - you can hardly call it a factory - is discreet, still looks like the barn it was, part of the scenery with stone-flagged roof and a modest sign. There are stunning views across the countryside and the new extension has deep windows set into the thick walls so anyone doing the washing up can look across the fields to the church and the lower reaches of Wensleydale.

"I know I could move the whole operation out onto an industrial estate and have a lovely purpose-built unit there, but I couldn't, I just couldn't. Staying here I hope we can have all the advantages of hi-tech equipment but still stay true to our original values."

Elspeth's ambitions for the future don't involve more lines - in fact, she's considering trimming some of the varieties so she can make the rest even better. And she would never consider supplying supermarkets.

"They take over. They control what you make and how you make it. We want to do things our way. All I really want to do is to make things as near perfect as possible."

So in all this quest for perfection has there ever been a failure.

"Yes, Cherry jam. Utter failure."

Somehow, that's quite reassuring...

* Rosebud Preserves, Rosebud Farm, Healey, Ripon HG4 4LH (01765) 689174.