We are flying high on our awards!
Five awards, three competitions: the year our recipes did the talking
Some moments make you finally look up from the workbench.
2026 is one of them. In just a few months, Leo's Little Jars picked up five distinctions across three different competitions: two Gold Awards and one Silver Award at the Food & Home Best in Food Awards, an SA Champion title at the Agri-Expo Preserve Championships, and a nomination at the Medical Excellence Awards.
Five stories, five recipes, one vision: making jam to remember.
Giovanni's: the year we decided to go full Italian
A year ago, we launched the Giovanni's range with one simple direction: go full Italian. Not just another range, a real statement.
We wanted flavours that speak to the italian Deli with elegance and a tat cliché: think Pear and pistachio, Apricot and almond, Lemon and limoncello, Pomodoro Italiano... Every pairing was thought through, tested, adjusted,until it found its own identity.
Two creations from that range stood out this year in particular.
The first is Naartjie & Aperol, an ode to the Italian aperitivo.
Aperol's aromatic bitterness balances the naartjie's tangy sweetness, making a marmalade equally at home on toast or in a cocktail.
It's a recipe that didn't exist anywhere else: we don't copy, we invent.
The second is Fico & Oliva: fig, olives and Giovanni's own extra virgin olive oil. A recipe we knew was a risk, sitting so far outside what people expect from a jam, but one that ended up winning over the most demanding judges.
Both received the Gold Award at Food & Home in the Best in Food category. Fico & Oliva went on to win Best Fruit Preserve, and Naartjie & Aperol took Best Jam or Marmalade. Two Gold Awards for two recipes born from the same passion to surprise.
This range carries the Giovanni's name for a reason: it was created exclusively for them. Giovanni's Deliworld on Main Road, Green Point, is one of Cape Town's most iconic Italian delis since 1989, the kind of place where regulars are greeted by name and the shelves are lined with the best of what Italy has to offer. Being trusted to develop a range that carries their name, and sits on their shelves alongside everything they've spent decades curating, is not something we take lightly.
=> You'll find the full Giovanni's range at their Green Point flagship, as well as at Alphen Spar Constantia, Palmyra Deli Newlands, and of course directly with us.
Guava & Vanilla: a genuine labour of love
The Silver Award at Food & Home went to our Guava & Vanilla, and this one has a different story.
It's a jam that demands an almost absurd amount of work: our team removes every single pip from the guava by hand to get that perfectly smooth texture. It's basically a gym workout, just look at my teams biceps. But every minute of it shows in the result, a silky jam with no rough edges, spreading over a toasted brioche like nothing else.
Plenty of our customers tell us this jam takes them straight back to childhood, to the days when their oma made her own guava jam. That's exactly what we're after: not just a good product, but a memory.
Mango & Granadilla: the recipe that never ages
The SA Champion title at the Agri-Expo Preserve Championships went to our Mango & Granadilla, a recipe I created back in 2018 that remains, year after year, one of our top seller.
There's a simple reason for that: balance. The generous sweetness of mango meets the sharp acidity of granadilla. That balance is exactly why it works everywhere, on a croissant, on a cheesecake or over vanilla ice cream.
Eight years after it was created, it's still winning over judges as much as customers.
The nomination for making a difference
Finally, our no sugar added jam range was nominated at the Medical Excellence Awards by Medi Magazine, for our commitment to offering excellent products for people living with diabetes.
This one isn't a recognition of taste, it's a recognition of mission.
From the start, we refused the idea that a jam without added sugar has to be a compromise on taste. This nomination confirms we were right to hold that line.
Everyone deserves a treat when having jam! And now everyone can.
What it means to us
Five awards, three competitions, one thread running through all of it: every jar starts with a recipe we didn't find anywhere else. We don't replicate classics, we invent new ones, with all the rigour that takes.
We're incredibly proud of these recognitions, and we take that responsibility very seriously. Thank you to everyone who tastes, who comes back, and who keeps pushing us to keep daring.
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