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In The Beginning...
​The Story About How JamBusters! Started.

JamBusters! got it's start in the Similkameen Valley quite by accident. One spring Brenda Engel discovered her rhubarb patch had been raided. The patch, which has repeatedly produced a fairly good crop, is located in her yard.

​She and her husband, George Elliott, had ignored the patch not even noticing it some years until after it had gone to seed. For some reason that spring Engel noticed that the stalks of rhubarb that normally protrude up from the mound of dirt were missing.

The following spring Engel harvested the rhubarb and made some loaves with rhubarb in them and gave away some other parts of the rhubarb yield that season. During the spring of 2014, Engel harvested the rhubarb with plans to create a canning experiment. More details are in this video. After pouring over numerous recipes with rhubarb as the main ingredient she settled on something she called Gingered-Citrus Rhubarb Jam. It became a small hit in and around the community.

At the time, a market was setting up Saturday's along highway exposure and Engel tried her hand at selling some items. Results were not very encouraging but she did take note that many homemade products were being bought and in the following weeks she took her jam along with a couple more varieties of canned goods. Engel found there was a market for her brand of unusual mixtures of recipes.

She was also encouraged to enter hot sauces in a nearby competition during an annual pepper festival. Her entries won two of the top prizes. Find out more about that here. The name JamBusters! was decided upon and a brand was created. Following MarketSafe certification, Engel left the market and went on her own. Since then there have been several vending events attended.

You can reach JamBusters! by email at: brenda.engel57@gmail.com

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NEW JamBusters! Video

Our Products...

JamBusters! has had a mustard product in our inventory and we are looking to expand on that. Here are two of our test market samplers who stopped by the JamBusters! booth February 29, 2020.

As of July 2018,
our product inventory has been updated.
To see the complete list click HERE.
All items are subject to availability with
​some in limited supply. Others are seasonally.

JamBusters! Online

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Where To Find Us...

JamBusters! is vending weekly in the Oliver Indoor Flea Market (The Main Building) located at 6005 Station Street, Oliver, British Columbia, Canada.

Our dates are as follows:
April 2021 - December 2021
8:00 AM - 3:00 PM Saturdays - Oliver Indoor Flea Market, Oliver, BC
9:00 AM - 3:00 PM Sundays - Oliver Indoor Flea Market, Oliver, BC.

Watkins Products

At Oliver we also have Watkins Products (Independent Watkins Consultant #976408).
To join our team or to shop from our online catalogue visit: Watkins IC #976408

At all of our vending events we feature:
"Sparkle By Bee" Hair Silks 

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George's Recovery

George was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in April 2020. He has been working very hard in his recovery to where he is now stair climbing, walking, jogging and lifting light weights.

With almost a year of recovery behind him, I shot this video while he was stair climbing one day to find out what he's been doing and how the workouts are helping.

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2017 Vending Season Highlights

The 2017 Vending Season started a lot earlier for us than we expected. In working as part of a sub-committee of the Princeton & District Chamber of Commerce we helped organize monthly market events. The 'Entrepreneurs Markets' were held on February 11, March 11 and April 8. We also added a few more new events to our 'off season' which saw JamBusters! vending at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market in Oliver, BC on April 1, Lower Nicola on April 9 and back in Oliver at the Spring Extravaganza in the Elk's Hall on May 6. 

With warmer weather, outdoor vending events started to pop up on our radar. We went to one in Smith Pioneer Park in Lower Nicola, BC on May 28 and vended the two days of the Stan Thompson Memorial Rodeo in Princeton on June 10 & 11. The Okanagan Falls Community and Farmer's Market season started June 18. We vended there for the full 12-week season ending September 3. In mid-August we added Saturday vending dates at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market in Oliver, BC until September 2. September 2017 saw us vend at the Princeton Fall Fair, Similkameen Sizzle, the Lower Nicola Garlic Festival and the Heritage Fall Fair at the Keremeos Grist Mill. In October we settled down to Saturday and Sunday vending dates at the Oliver Indoor Flea Market where we also have Watkins Products available (Independent Consultant #824683).

Below are three videos from 2017 events: JamBusters! Video #38 is from one of the Chamber Markets, JamBusters! Video #36 is from the Oliver Indoor Flea Market and JamBusters! Video #45 is from the Stan Thompson Memorial Rodeo in Princeton...with much more to come!

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2016 Vending Season Highlights

JamBusters! started 2016 with a couple of indoor events locally that we were invited to participate in. On March 9 we were one of a few hand-picked vendors to be included in a very special Ladies Night event at the Vermilion Fork Restaurant in Princeton. We followed that with a playground fundraising event at John Allison Elementary School in Princeton on April 30. The Backcountry Horsemen of BC held their annual Jamboree in Princeton May 27, 28 & 29 and we were invited to be part of that very special activity as vendors.

By the time summer rolled around we were looking at opportunities to vend on a regular basis and found the Hedley Farmer's Market in Hedley, British Columbia as such a place. We vended there June 19, 26, July 3 & 10. A weather closure saw us take JamBusters! further down the highway to the Okanagan Falls Community & Farmer's Market in Okanagan Falls, British Columbia. We vended there July 17, 24, 31, August 14, 21, 28 and September 4. We followed that up with the Princeton Fall Fair September 10 & 11 and Similkameen Sizzle in Keremeos, BC on September 17.

Then we turned our attention to the Christmas Craft Fair circuit and attended events on October 22 (Hedley), November 5 (Kamloops), November 19 (Penticton), November 26 (Princeton) and December 11 (Lower Nicola) to finish out the year which saw us attend a total of 12 different venues. It also meant that we had vended on a total of 24 different dates. We were looking forward to a quiet winter 'off season' to develop new products and replenish stock...or that's what we had originally planned by the end of December 2016.

Below are videos from three events from 2016: JamBusters! Video #10 is from the Hedley Farmer's Market, JamBusters! Video #19 is from the Okanagan Falls Community & Farmer's Market and JamBusters! Video #26 is from a Christmas Craft Fair we attended in Kamloops.