THE MAN behind the Droitwich Salted Fudge which is due to go on general sale at this weekend’s Food Festival has thanked the community for rallying round to help when his wife was diagnosed with cancer.
Justin Bowen from Wychbold Fudge contacted The Standard to praise the assistance volunteers had provided to ensure production of the history-making confectionery continued. The family has also had an offer of help from the Worcestershire Young Farmers.
Helga, who was given the all clear from breast cancer in February after a year-long battle, has now been diagnosed with secondary cancer of the brain and abdomen.
Justin said: “As you can imagine, this came as a huge shock.
“Aside from the effect on us as a family, we also realised it would impact on what we had been building with our business.
“We recognised we would unlikely to be able to continue supplying our customers and shops with fudge, so made the decision very quickly to let them know.”
But within days, people came forward offering to help.
“It wasn’t just friends and family, but also complete strangers who’d been told about our situation.
“They offered to help not only with things like child care, but also to wrap and package our brine salt fudge so that we could continue to sell it in the local shops we supply.
“At the moment when we were struggling the most, this gave us the inspiration to stand up and make something positive from the situation.”
While Helga’s prognosis is unknown at this stage, she has just started chemotherapy for the second time, the couple resolved to do everything they could to create a lasting project.
They wanted the Droitwich Salted Fudge to not only secure an income for the family, but also one provide an on-going way of saying thank you to all the people who came forward and perhaps most importantly of all, provide inspiration to those suffering from cancer who also find themselves struggling to come to terms with a diagnosis.
So the fudge will be used as a means of fund-raising for Macmillan Cancer Support.
“It was thanks to our wonderful volunteers that it is able to go on sale at the Droitwich Food Festival, which looked almost impossible just a few weeks ago.
It will also be on sale at several local shops and some of the proceeds from the fudge will be donated to Macmillan.
“Our initial target is £100 per month (which would equate to approximately 10p from each bar we sell), but we hope ultimately to do significantly more than that.
“However, we are taking it one step at a time and are determined to build a lasting project.”
Visit www.wychboldfudge.co.uk or check out the video on the ‘Wychbold Fudge’ Facebook page for more information.
