Yorkshire-based husband and wife alumni team, Jamie Stokes (Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology, 2010) and Sarah Stokes (Business Studies, 2010) launched flavoured butter business, The Yorkshire Kitchen, starting from a family recipe. After catching the eye of James Martin in their first year, while still holding down full-time corporate jobs, both now work full time in the business, which is going from strength to strength.

Jamie Stokes and Sarah Stokes (nee Laughran) met at Lancaster where they were both part of Grizedale College. After graduating, Jamie honed his skills in optics and genetic research whereas, Sarah who graduated with a Business Studies, specialised in branding and digital marketing. However, with two children in tow, the couple left their corporate careers in large companies to build a food business.

Born from a brandy butter recipe that they thought would be popular, the entrepreneurial couple launched a range of sweet, flavoured butters that can be used with pancakes and pastries. After attending a few initial food festivals, Jamie says ‘We simply couldn’t make the product quick enough, we were selling out at every show we went to and the amazing response from customers blew us away!’

From listening to customer feedback, the business-minded pair launched a range of flavoured savoury butters which can be used to cook meat and fish, stir into pasta, or simply spread on crusty bread. This range has become even more popular than the sweet butters, catching the eye of James Martin who cooked with them on his Saturday Morning show.

The business naturally grew quite rapidly over the first year, with Jamie taking the decision to leave his corporate job in this time. The business scaled further in their second year, when Sarah joined the business in a full-time capacity. Last year The Yorkshire Kitchen signed up to a national distributor, won two Great Taste Awards for their butters and made appearances on QVC and ITV.

Jamie is a born and bred Yorkshire lad, and the couple live just outside Barnsley. Sarah says "Our Yorkshire heritage is a very important part of our business and we work closely with suppliers within the region to create our delicious butters. We like supporting local producers and know our products haven’t travelled far from farm to fork". The team at The Yorkshire Kitchen even won a Best New Business award in 2024, commending their efforts to collaborate with other businesses in the region.

With all hands on deck this year, Jamie and Sarah have big plans, hoping to expand their range of butters, increase retail stockists and explore exporting.

Jamie and Sarah have very fond memories of being at Lancaster and credit the University in installing some important skills which have helped with the growth of their business. Sarah says 'My Business Studies degree gave me extremely useful knowledge of the components of a business, but outside of our specific degree subjects, we both learnt so many skills including tenacity and pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone, which are some of the reasons we've grown as fast as we have'.

For more information visit www.theyorkshirekitchen.com