IN a quiet street in sleepy Charfield a couple are hard at work building a jam and preserve empire.

Steve Yeo, 42, and his partner, Lisa Berry, 31, have recently launched their jam and preserve making company Plonkers of Charfield.

From their kitchen in Charfield Green they make a varied selection of fruit based jams and marmalades including flavours such as Elderberry, Strawberry, Clementine, Lemon and Lime and Blackberry.

The couple, who have two children, Thomas, 2, and Erica, 8, have started the company to help supplement their income after Mr Yeo, who is a professional singer, was diagnosed with cancer of the vocal cords.

"When I was diagnosed a couple of years ago, as a professional singer it's not good news, so to keep the money coming we came up with the idea. I used to make home-made wine so it was a progression of that," said Mr Yeo, who now works in security.

Plonkers really is a traditional family business, with Mr Yeo taking charge of the technical side, working the website, sorting orders and stock, Miss Berry makes the jam and young Thomas takes on the very important role of chief taster.

Plonkers of Charfield was officially launched at the Charfield Village Fair last month and so far the couple have received positive feedback from customers in the local community.

Mr Yeo said: "Our product is proving popular because there are no preservatives in our jams they are just fruit and sugar, we do not add anything to them.

"Where we can, we like to locally source all the fruit we use, either getting it from here in the village or at a local fruit market.

"We have had a good response so far from people and around the village which is really encouraging. We hope to start attending more and more local events and get ourselves firmly established.

"We might consider branching out into other products such as liqueurs at a later date but we want to establish what have at the moment with the jams and preserves."

More information about Plonkers of Charfield can be found by visiting the company's website, which is due to be launched later in the month, at, www.plonkersofcharfield.com