2x4 Jam Co.
Homemade. Small Batch. Local.
Homemade natural preserves made from fruit local to the Niagara region. All jams and jellies have only 3 ingredients: fruit, sugar and pectin.
2x4 Jam Co.
Homemade. Small Batch. Local.
Homemade natural preserves made from fruit local to the Niagara region. All jams and jellies have only 3 ingredients: fruit, sugar and pectin.
2x4 Jam Co.
Homemade. Small Batch. Local.
Homemade natural preserves made from fruit local to the Niagara region. All jams and jellies have only 3 ingredients: fruit, sugar and pectin.
Our Rooted Tale
Rejected fruit, rescued into jars
In 2014, Lisa Traficante was on maternity leave in Niagara-on-the-Lake, walking the orchard rows with her newborn, when she noticed the blue plums lying on the ground. Rejected. Not pretty enough to meet consumer standards, so left in the field to rot, and that is how 2x4 Jam Co. began: as an effort to reduce food waste on the farm. "It is still good fruit, it just doesn't look as pretty." She had time. She collected some, made about 20 jars that week, and put them out at the roadside fruit stand to see what would happen. All 20 sold and locals started asking for more. The next season she made 200 jars and those sold too. Last year the count passed 3,000.
Twenty jars from rejected blue plums
Her grandmother made this same jam
A one-woman show with limits
A nomination worth celebrating
Local fruit, compost, and reusable jars
Our Rooted Tale
Rejected fruit, rescued into jars
In 2014, Lisa Traficante was on maternity leave in Niagara-on-the-Lake, walking the orchard rows with her newborn, when she noticed the blue plums lying on the ground. Rejected. Not pretty enough to meet consumer standards, so left in the field to rot, and that is how 2x4 Jam Co. began: as an effort to reduce food waste on the farm. "It is still good fruit, it just doesn't look as pretty." She had time. She collected some, made about 20 jars that week, and put them out at the roadside fruit stand to see what would happen. All 20 sold and locals started asking for more. The next season she made 200 jars and those sold too. Last year the count passed 3,000.
Twenty jars from rejected blue plums
Her grandmother made this same jam
A one-woman show with limits
A nomination worth celebrating
Local fruit, compost, and reusable jars
Our Rooted Tale
Rejected fruit, rescued into jars
In 2014, Lisa Traficante was on maternity leave in Niagara-on-the-Lake, walking the orchard rows with her newborn, when she noticed the blue plums lying on the ground. Rejected. Not pretty enough to meet consumer standards, so left in the field to rot, and that is how 2x4 Jam Co. began: as an effort to reduce food waste on the farm. "It is still good fruit, it just doesn't look as pretty." She had time. She collected some, made about 20 jars that week, and put them out at the roadside fruit stand to see what would happen. All 20 sold and locals started asking for more. The next season she made 200 jars and those sold too. Last year the count passed 3,000.
Twenty jars from rejected blue plums
Her grandmother made this same jam
A one-woman show with limits
A nomination worth celebrating
Local fruit, compost, and reusable jars
Bestseller Spotlight
Strawberry Fields
2x4 Jam Co.'s Strawberry Fields is a strawberry jam made the way small-batch preserving asks for: ripe, in-season fruit, cooked in quantities small enough that Lisa can watch every pot. The Niagara-on-the-Lake farm that grows the fruit sits right on the corner of Line 2 Road and Concession 4 Road, which is where the company name came from. Her husband thought it up, a small homage to the land that produces the fruit she uses, and he has been her biggest supporter since she started in 2014.
Customers come back for the flavour and the freshness. There is something to be said about using in-season ripe fruit to create a preserve; it is what sets these jars apart from mass produced jams and jellies, where the fruit was picked for shelf life rather than for the week it tasted like itself. Strawberry Fields is one of two bestsellers, and it has never quite pulled ahead.
Bestseller Spotlight
Strawberry Fields
2x4 Jam Co.'s Strawberry Fields is a strawberry jam made the way small-batch preserving asks for: ripe, in-season fruit, cooked in quantities small enough that Lisa can watch every pot. The Niagara-on-the-Lake farm that grows the fruit sits right on the corner of Line 2 Road and Concession 4 Road, which is where the company name came from. Her husband thought it up, a small homage to the land that produces the fruit she uses, and he has been her biggest supporter since she started in 2014.
Customers come back for the flavour and the freshness. There is something to be said about using in-season ripe fruit to create a preserve; it is what sets these jars apart from mass produced jams and jellies, where the fruit was picked for shelf life rather than for the week it tasted like itself. Strawberry Fields is one of two bestsellers, and it has never quite pulled ahead.
Bestseller Spotlight
Strawberry Fields
2x4 Jam Co.'s Strawberry Fields is a strawberry jam made the way small-batch preserving asks for: ripe, in-season fruit, cooked in quantities small enough that Lisa can watch every pot. The Niagara-on-the-Lake farm that grows the fruit sits right on the corner of Line 2 Road and Concession 4 Road, which is where the company name came from. Her husband thought it up, a small homage to the land that produces the fruit she uses, and he has been her biggest supporter since she started in 2014.
Customers come back for the flavour and the freshness. There is something to be said about using in-season ripe fruit to create a preserve; it is what sets these jars apart from mass produced jams and jellies, where the fruit was picked for shelf life rather than for the week it tasted like itself. Strawberry Fields is one of two bestsellers, and it has never quite pulled ahead.
Meet the Founders
Restless maker of small batches
Lisa Traficante
Lisa Traficante did not set out to start a jam company in Niagara-on-the-Lake. She was on maternity leave and 2x4 Jam Co. began the way a lot of specialty food businesses quietly begin: with time, a sleeping baby, and a batch of 'rejected' plums. "I am not one to sit around and like to keep busy," she says, so when the baby slept, she made jam. She ended up with far more jars than one household could ever eat, handed about twenty of them to her husband to put on the roadside fruit stand, and it kind of spiralled from there. That summer she made more jam from different fruits, and here we are.
The first run was two dozen mason jars from Home Hardware, with Sharpie writing on the lids so people would know what flavour they were reaching for. The business took root in 2014 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the jars have kept coming ever since. These days she orders them by the case, and the lids carry printed labels with punny names instead of marker.
What has not changed is the size of the pot. She works with local fruit and makes each batch the same way, the same recipe, time and time again. Only six to eight jars come out at a time, which is small even by small-batch standards and slow by any standard. She could scale the pot. She doesn't. "I feel that you can taste the difference."
The part that keeps her grounded is not the volume. It is the custom orders for baby showers, wedding showers, wedding favours, jars that sit on a table at somebody's biggest day. "It is nice to have my name attached to something meaningful and know that I helped in that in a very small way." That is the whole belief, really: "You need to have passion and drive for what you do. People can feel that love poured into what you do and that truly makes a difference."
Meet the Founders
Restless maker of small batches
Lisa Traficante
Lisa Traficante did not set out to start a jam company in Niagara-on-the-Lake. She was on maternity leave and 2x4 Jam Co. began the way a lot of specialty food businesses quietly begin: with time, a sleeping baby, and a batch of 'rejected' plums. "I am not one to sit around and like to keep busy," she says, so when the baby slept, she made jam. She ended up with far more jars than one household could ever eat, handed about twenty of them to her husband to put on the roadside fruit stand, and it kind of spiralled from there. That summer she made more jam from different fruits, and here we are.
The first run was two dozen mason jars from Home Hardware, with Sharpie writing on the lids so people would know what flavour they were reaching for. The business took root in 2014 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the jars have kept coming ever since. These days she orders them by the case, and the lids carry printed labels with punny names instead of marker.
What has not changed is the size of the pot. She works with local fruit and makes each batch the same way, the same recipe, time and time again. Only six to eight jars come out at a time, which is small even by small-batch standards and slow by any standard. She could scale the pot. She doesn't. "I feel that you can taste the difference."
The part that keeps her grounded is not the volume. It is the custom orders for baby showers, wedding showers, wedding favours, jars that sit on a table at somebody's biggest day. "It is nice to have my name attached to something meaningful and know that I helped in that in a very small way." That is the whole belief, really: "You need to have passion and drive for what you do. People can feel that love poured into what you do and that truly makes a difference."
Meet the Founders
Restless maker of small batches
Lisa Traficante
Lisa Traficante did not set out to start a jam company in Niagara-on-the-Lake. She was on maternity leave and 2x4 Jam Co. began the way a lot of specialty food businesses quietly begin: with time, a sleeping baby, and a batch of 'rejected' plums. "I am not one to sit around and like to keep busy," she says, so when the baby slept, she made jam. She ended up with far more jars than one household could ever eat, handed about twenty of them to her husband to put on the roadside fruit stand, and it kind of spiralled from there. That summer she made more jam from different fruits, and here we are.
The first run was two dozen mason jars from Home Hardware, with Sharpie writing on the lids so people would know what flavour they were reaching for. The business took root in 2014 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and the jars have kept coming ever since. These days she orders them by the case, and the lids carry printed labels with punny names instead of marker.
What has not changed is the size of the pot. She works with local fruit and makes each batch the same way, the same recipe, time and time again. Only six to eight jars come out at a time, which is small even by small-batch standards and slow by any standard. She could scale the pot. She doesn't. "I feel that you can taste the difference."
The part that keeps her grounded is not the volume. It is the custom orders for baby showers, wedding showers, wedding favours, jars that sit on a table at somebody's biggest day. "It is nice to have my name attached to something meaningful and know that I helped in that in a very small way." That is the whole belief, really: "You need to have passion and drive for what you do. People can feel that love poured into what you do and that truly makes a difference."
A small gesture that started to save some fruit turned into a small business. That is the whole of it. What began in 2014 here in Niagara-on-the-Lake was never a plan so much as a refusal to let good fruit go to waste.
Every jar is still fruit, sugar and pectin. Three ingredients, nothing else, made in small batches from fruit local to the Niagara region.
I appreciate each and every customer who purchases a jar of jam or jelly, and I strive to give back to the community who supported that as well.
~ Lisa Traficante
A heartfelt Note
A small gesture that started to save some fruit turned into a small business. That is the whole of it. What began in 2014 here in Niagara-on-the-Lake was never a plan so much as a refusal to let good fruit go to waste.
Every jar is still fruit, sugar and pectin. Three ingredients, nothing else, made in small batches from fruit local to the Niagara region.
I appreciate each and every customer who purchases a jar of jam or jelly, and I strive to give back to the community who supported that as well.
~ Lisa Traficante
A heartfelt Note
A small gesture that started to save some fruit turned into a small business. That is the whole of it. What began in 2014 here in Niagara-on-the-Lake was never a plan so much as a refusal to let good fruit go to waste.
Every jar is still fruit, sugar and pectin. Three ingredients, nothing else, made in small batches from fruit local to the Niagara region.
I appreciate each and every customer who purchases a jar of jam or jelly, and I strive to give back to the community who supported that as well.
~ Lisa Traficante
A heartfelt Note
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Every local business has a different beginning. Discover more local makers sharing their craft, culture, and journey.
Every local business has a different beginning. Discover more local makers sharing their craft, culture, and journey.
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Ready to join Canada's Local Storytellers?
From immigrant bakers to craft brewers, candle makers to café owners—Halifax's most authentic local businesses are building their legacy on Rooted Tale.
Join Rooted Tale
Ready to join Canada's Local Storytellers?
From immigrant bakers to craft brewers, candle makers to café owners—Halifax's most authentic local businesses are building their legacy on Rooted Tale.
Join Rooted Tale
Ready to join Canada's Local Storytellers?
From immigrant bakers to craft brewers, candle makers to café owners—Halifax's most authentic local businesses are building their legacy on Rooted Tale.
Every local business has a unique journey. If you have built something meaningful, overcome challenges, or have stories that could inspire others, we want to feature you on Rooted Tale.
© Rooted Tale 2026 All Rights Reserved
Designed with ❤️ for local brands.
Every local business has a unique journey. If you have built something meaningful, overcome challenges, or have stories that could inspire others, we want to feature you on Rooted Tale.
© Rooted Tale 2026 All Rights Reserved
Designed with ❤️ for local brands.