Jam has a world championship too, and it’s held every August in a village of a few hundred people in southwest France. Beaupuy, in the Lot-et-Garonne department, announced its 2026 results on Sunday evening.
The Confituriades bring together professional and amateur jam makers once a year for a weekend in August, where a panel of tasters judges their jars. This year’s 18th edition ran August 22 and 23 at La Belle Colline, alongside a producers’ market, jam-making workshops, cooking demonstrations, and, on Sunday night, a concert and fireworks to close things out.
The 2026 gold, the “Confituriade d’Or,” went to Tante Aline, based in Gréolières in the Alpes-Maritimes, for a traditional blueberry, raspberry, rosemary and lime preserve. Silver went to Maraude et Compagnie, from the Ain department, for a morello cherry and raspberry blend; the same producer also took first prize in the Traditional category, this time with an apricot jam. Bronze went to Les Confiseries du Verdier, based in Bourran, just a few miles from the host village, which also won first prize in the Creative category with a cherry preserve.
The competition also runs a “Fruit Preparations Challenge,” won this year by Maraviglie, a producer from Bastelicaccia in Corsica, for a cherry, raspberry and blueberry blend, ahead of Brittany’s Maison Lucie and Oh Palais d’Isa from the Landes.
The championship bills itself as open to jam makers worldwide: in 2022, a producer from Casablanca, Morocco, made the podium in the Fruit Preparations Challenge. This year’s winners are all French, but the event still makes the case that a panel of tasters and a few hundred jars are enough to turn a village in southwest France into the world’s jam capital for a weekend.