Alan Peck’s story begins with childhood memories of Christmas and his grandmother’s guava jelly, homemade from guavas grown on the family farm in the blue mountains of Jamaica. His story continues with the love of gardening passed on from his mother, the ethic to never waste food, and the plentiful oranges and pomegranates grown in his own backyard. With full crops of backyard fruit year after year, the dilemma of pomegranate seeds, pomegranate stains, and not being able to eat it all, Alan bought a book on preserving fruit and learned how to make pomegranate jelly and orange marmalade. He started gifting it to family for Christmas and they loved it. His brother had a guava tree and a grapefruit tree, so Alan also harvested his fruit and began making grapefruit marmalade and guava jam. Following in his grandmother’s tradition, he was now giving guava jam, along with the marmalades and jelly, to family and friends for Christmas. “Peck’s Preserves” was in demand and a new company began.
Peck’s Preserves is a home-based cottage food business subsidiary of the AJ Peck Companies, a partnership of the husband and wife team of Alan and Jamelle Peck. The preserves are made of entirely home-grown natural ingredients with no preservatives.
Ever since she was six years old, Jamelle Peck has been baking cookies. Over the years she perfected her recipe and regularly shared her cookies with family and friends: chocolate chip, chocolate chip with walnuts, and white chocolate with macadamias. Her husband began asking her to bake a cookie without the chocolate chips, and her daughter wanted a cookie without the chips or the nuts. Jamelle regularly refused, because “it just wouldn’t be right”! Until one day, her nephew pleaded… “just bake the STRAIGHT DOUGH”, to which she finally conceded. The plain butter sugar cookie, now known as “Straight Dough”, and the Straight Dough with Pecans were instant family favorites. Shortly thereafter, a new cookie company was born, “Straight Dough Cookie Company”, along with the desire to share the scrumptious buttery goodness of Jamelle’s cookies with everyone.
The Straight Dough Cookie Company is a home-based cottage food business subsidiary of the AJ Peck Companies, a partnership of the husband and wife team of Alan and Jamelle Peck. The cookies are made of entirely natural ingredients with no preservatives.