The Yorkshire Kitchen: The husband and wife butter business that caught the attention of Yorkshire’s own celebrity chef James Martin
A butter business that started out as ‘a bit of fun’ by a husband and wife duo has become very popular with Yorkshire folk - including celebrity chef James Martin.
Married couple Jamie and Sarah Stokes originally came from corporate backgrounds as Jamie works as a scientist at a genetics firm while Sarah worked in branding at Cambridge University.
In April 2023, during a holiday in Spain, they decided to go into business for themselves and were inspired by Sarah’s family brandy butter recipe.
They didn’t stop at that flavour and decided to produce a range of sweet and savoury butters right here in Yorkshire.
What started out as a ‘bit of fun’ quickly grew into a very popular brand after they sold their butters at Christmas markets that year.
After a few months of selling their product while trading at Chatsworth Country Fair their business caught the attention of James Martin and his team.
“A lady came to our stand and said she was part of the production team for James Martin’s Saturday Kitchen,” Mrs Stokes said.
“We weren’t sure if it was real or not. She said [our butters] look very interesting, obviously James Martin loves his butter and we’re a Yorkshire business, so it would make an ideal collaboration.
“We sent her away with some samples and she said she would taste them with the team and they would get back to us in a couple of weeks.
“We got an email through and they said that they loved the products and wanted us to go on the show. That was amazing - we were absolutely chuffed to bits.
“James had all of our products on the show and it’s the bit at the start of the Saturday morning show where it’s a meet-the-producers section.
“He mainly used our savoury butters to cook with and he did different seafood dishes on the barbecue. He did crab, prawns and scallops and he did it all with our butters while interviewing us. That aired in November 2024 and they did a repeat of it in summer last year.
“He was super friendly. We really enjoyed speaking to him. Before it went live on air, he had a little chat with us before we started filming, trying to settle any nerves and explained to us how it would work.”
The process of producing the butters is harder than you think, Jamie said.
“First of all, things don’t like to dissolve in butter, so you need to get something that can blend well because butter is a fat-based product and water-based flavourings don’t want to mix with it very well,” he said.
“We’ve got to play tricks like using alcohol that helps it to blend in, but also picking ingredients that can be ground-fine and be dispersed through.
“The blending and flavour processes are not easy but also we whip it to a consistency where the air pockets are well insulated.
“They sit on really warm desserts, so it’s got a really nice texture and it’s spreadable without adding any of the kind of rubbish that you get in some spreadable butters. The formulation is not so easy.”
Owning a business as a husband and wife can come with its benefits and challenges.
“It’s like working with your best friend,” Jamie said.
“It’s like working with someone who knows you inside out; sometimes we can communicate without hardly talking to each other. We know whose role is what.
“One thing that is difficult - and I think people who work from home get this a lot - some of that natural conversation about your day has disappeared because you’re spending your day together.
“But once that passes, you’re working with someone who is like an extension of yourself.”
There’s also the challenge of struggling to switch off, Sarah said.
“We don’t have an end to the working day and because we live together and spend all our time together, there’s never really a switch off,” she said.
“On the positive [side], I partner in business with somebody that I trust implicitly and that makes running a business a lot easier.
“I can ask him anything I want to and we know each other so well that decisions and division of tasks are easier because we know what each other’s strengths are.”
During a busy period, they produce tens of thousand units per week.
“It’s really popular,” Mr Stokes said.
“We’ve got our honey and cinnamon butter and I’d say that is our hero product; people taste it and their eyes and mouths are open.
“They’d say: ‘I didn’t know I needed butter in my life’. A dollop of that in your porridge is incredible.”
The most popular savoury butter flavours are garlic and herb and black summer truffle.
“People tend to know what to do with [the garlic and herb] a bit more, with making garlic bread and with your steak,” Mrs Stokes said.
“Another flavour that we introduced within the past year was the black summer truffle.
“This is a really popular one; it feels a bit more luxurious, it’s nice to use with your pasta, risotto and we use real European truffles in that.
“The savoury butters come in a roll format and need to be refrigerated; they’re more like typical butter but with flavouring and those ones are good with different meats, fish, vegetables.
“You can literally stir them through cooked food, or a slice of butter on a bit of steak, you can have them on a cheeseboard, alongside your cheese and crackers.
“The sweet butters that we make come in the jars, they can be used more like a spread; you can have them on your toast but they’re also good for pancake topping, waffles, crumpets, teacakes [etc].
Sarah, 37, from Coventry, describes herself as an ‘adopted Yorkshire lass’.
“Jamie and I have been together since I was 18, so Yorkshire has been a part of my life for 18 years,” she said.
“He’s a very proud Yorkshireman. From the day I met him, he’s never stopped banging on about how great Yorkshire is.”
Jamie added: “They always say you don’t have to ask a man if he’s from Yorkshire because give him long enough, he’ll tell you himself.
“Yorkshire has got a proud heritage and we like to remind ourselves that we’re from Yorkshire.
“[Sarah] took to my grandfather, who was around when Sarah first came on the scene, really well.
“He just loved the fact that she was from outside of Yorkshire coming in, he could tell her all about what it was like here and tell her all these stories about Yorkshire.
“It’s nice that one of us is from Yorkshire and one of us is not because people from Yorkshire ask [Sarah] how did you get into it and there’s a nice story there. She’s been welcomed with open arms.”
Their appearance on James Martin’s Saturday Morning show boosted their online orders and they still see an impact from it today, Jamie said.
“Our online orders went through the roof; our website did keep up, but only just,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of people from Yorkshire messaging us saying: ‘I’ve lived away now, great to hear the accent, I’ve ordered some of your butters’, it was really good.
“But also those guys are on our mailing list and every time we send an email out, they are repurchasing.
“We saw a boost and it’s been growing from there. If you think about it, the man loves butter, the man’s from Yorkshire, it couldn’t be a better endorsement for our product. It was perfect.
“One thing that we’re trying to do is build the number of places that stock us; Yorkshire is a great place to start for that.
“If you own a farmshop, deli, butchers or hotel, [we’d love to collaborate]. That’s what we really want to push is retail and hospitality.”