Our family welcomes you into the home of the mouth-watering “Young maid” products where the best jams, sauces, pickles and chutneys Australia has to offer are made.

As producer of quality fruit for some 25 years, proprietors Lester and Jan Donges realised ten years ago that they had a serious concern with the large quantities of non-marketable cherries being produced from their own orchard and throughout the district.

Not fit to sell at the fresh fruit markets, these second - grade cherries were ideal for cooking, and so Lester’s Aunty Coral would cook cherry jam on her kitchen stove using her mother’s old style family recipe.

From these humble beginnings, Lester and Jan have developed in ten years what was once just a roadside stall into a popular tourist destination.
The secret behind this family’s success lies with value-adding.

Due to increasing demand for the sweet tasting jam further expansion was required, and so Lester and Jan established a small factory as part of their existing packing shed operation.

Here Cherry Jam would be made from 20 tonnes of second grade fruit produced each year from the Donges’ orchard.
To this day our fruit is still hand picked to ensure that it remains in top condition.

These fresh local fruit and vegetables are then value-added into our luscious spreads where our chefs take old fashion care to ensure that each batch satisfies JD’s rigorous standards and our customer’s discerning taste buds. All “Young Maid” Products are 100% Australian and totally natural, free of artificial colours, flavors and preservatives.

In 15 years,JD’s annual production has grown from a few kilos of home- cooked jam to a fully operational commercial factory. Accounting for some 200 tonnes of the districts down graded fruit and vegetables, the factory produces 120 different varieties of jams, sauces, pickles and chutneys.

Marketed under the “Young Maid” label some of JD’s products are now stocked in major supermarket chain stores in New South Wales and Canberra.

Now a supplier of processed fruit to McDonald’s Foods, Yoplait and SPC big plans are ahead for
the factory that has been the biggest thing in Young since cherries.

With this progress, JD’s Factory is an expanding enterprise open 7 days for public viewing and guided tours of the factory in operation.

Since the opening and expanding of the Country Tea Room, the upgrading and addition of other facilities, JD’s has seen dramatic increases in visitor interest. In 1991, about 8 coaches and 9000 people visit the factory.

JD’s boasts that in a year some 750-1000 coaches and approximately 100,000 to 150,000 visitors passed through this premier tourist attraction. Situation in Young, the Cherry Capital of Australia, it is easy to see why JD’s Jam Factory has become a tourist’s haven.