A Beloved East Bay Jam Maker Is Closing Shop After 15 Years

Save Article

It all started with a plate of cream cheese, pepper jelly and crackers. Trying that classic appetizer for the first time during a Thanksgiving feast in 2008, Dafna Kory remembers thinking it was “the most amazing thing ever.” Afterwards, when she wasn’t able to find a local source for jalapeño jam, she simply decided to make her own.

For Kory, that first batch of spicy-sweet pepper jam wound up setting her whole life on a new course: She started making jam obsessively out of whatever fruits she was able to forage in her Berkeley neighborhood. In 2010, she left her career as a video editor and started what would quickly become one of the Bay Area’s most beloved jam companies: INNA Jam.

Now, 15 years later, that jam journey is coming to an end — but not because the company is struggling for business, Kory stresses. She’s simply decided it’s time to move on. INNA will continue making its fruit-forward organic jams and shrubs (drinking vinegars) at its small production facility in Emeryville through the end of September. And then it will close its doors for good…

Story continues

TRENDING NOW

LATEST LOCAL NEWS