Carolina Marta Braunschweig is a 29-year-old freelance journalist who moved to San Francisco five years ago to cover venture capitalism and accidentally started her own business. It all began innocently enough, one day over lunch.

“A coworker and I used to go to lunch every day and commiserate about many things, including our total, abject poverty,” she says with a laugh. “We were always coming up with get-rich quick schemes.”

Braunschweig says she first came up with her business idea after reading about a successful local jam company. “[They] work out of Oakland and sell 30,000 jars a year, mostly direct-to-consumer for $10-13 for an 8-oz jar – it’s ridiculous. So I said, ‘I could make jam! I’ll start the jam of the month club …’ And my friend was like, ‘OK, moving on to your next stupid idea …,’ ” she says, laughing.

That afternoon, she looked up jam recipes online. “I was like, ‘How hard could it be? What’s the start-up cost: Sugar, fruit, a pot …?’ Then I sent out an email to everyone I could possibly think of and I was like, ‘Who wants to join the jam of the month club?’ And people were like, ‘What do you mean, like a rockin’ party jam?’ And I said, ‘No, like the stuff you put on your peanut butter!’ ”

The jam of the month club began with five members, who mostly joined out of sympathy, and grew to several dozen within a year.

“That was probably June or July of ’04, and I just kind of never stopped sending those emails.”

Braunschweig learned the basics through recipes she found but quickly began experimenting with more unique flavors, and about six months later, CMB Sweets was officially open for business. The line of organic jams and spreads comes in the traditional strawberry, boysenberry and raspberry, as well as more adventurous flavors like pomegranate, apricot-habañero and kiwi-lime ginger. Other creative concoctions include blood orange marmalade, pear vanilla butter and fig-sesame spread. Sound delicious? They are.

After scouring countless farmers’ markets, Braunschweig found several growers that she swears by – all of her berries come from one farm in Watsonville, she buys her apples from a grower in Sonoma, and her peaches and apricots from three farms in Fresno. She says it helps keep costs low, and helps support area farmers, to buy direct when possible.

“There’s always a middleman between the farmer and the consumer, usually two or three along the way, and the price doubles every step of the way,” she explains. “So the consumer’s willing to pay X, and the farmer’s only getting 1⁄4 of that.”

CMB has proven fruitful in its first year. In January, Braunschweig participated in the winter Fancy Food Show, the food industry’s biggest trade show. The company now has two regional sales reps, who have landed CMB prestigious accounts with several regional chains and smaller, independent stores, mostly on the East Coast. Braunschweig also just signed with a local distributor, which could add up to forty gift and specialty stores to CMB’s domain.

Private label sales have become another lucrative avenue for the company. CMB Sweets’ jam is now the “store brand” found at an upscale New York grocery chain and at a winery in Napa.

“I thought I would be opposed to private label but it takes away a lot of sales costs and marketing and design costs because they do all of it,” she explains. “I’m doing the production, but it’s their jar, their label, their brand. And they buy in volume, so it’s almost like bread and butter.” Braunschweig says she is also discussing private label possibilities with a gift basket company.

Braunschweig runs CMB Sweets from a small office at Candystore, along with several other local artisans and small-business owners, and says she can relate to the surreal feeling of having a creative project take on a life of its own.

“We all began a creative process, but at some point … it’s not that the creative part is over, but it becomes secondary to the business process, and that transformation is really shocking, it’s just a whole new set of factors to weigh,” she says. “You know, I can make blueberry lavender lemon blah blah blah preserve, but is there a market for it? And if so, what are my margins and what can volume can I sell, what volume can I produce? Suddenly I hear myself saying these things and taking them very seriously, and there’s a total mind-body disconnect,” she says, laughing.

The reluctant entrepreneur says she still does freelance writing and marketing work for a startup, but her business venture takes up all of her energy.

“All my thought processes are devoted to this, but I feel like I can’t have peace of mind to move this forward until my rent’s paid for and my health insurance, which is why I still hold on to these random [jobs],” she says with a sigh. “You have to do it; everyone [at Candystore] does web design or something else, it’s just that sort of foundation … [Our businesses are] really important and they’re not unsuccessful, but life is expensive!”

Though her life has changed in many ways (“I don’t eat as much fruit as I used to,” she says with a smile), she says she’s trying not to be overwhelmed by all she’s learned, or by all she has yet to learn. But in the meantime, she’s definitely not letting CMB’s success go to her head.

“I feel like one day I’m going to have to get a real job and they’re going to say, ‘So, where you been for the last two years?’ And I’ll be like, ‘Well, I make really good jam!’ ”

Find CMB Sweets products at dozens of Bay Area retailers, including Rainbow Grocery (1745 Folsom St, SF), Candystore (3153 16th St, SF), Gump’s (135 Post St, SF), Cheese Boutique (666 Chenery St, SF), Relish at Home (2703 Seventh St # 112, Berkeley) and Pasta Shop (1786 Fourth St, Berkeley), and in select stores nationwide.

The business has expanded to the point where Braunschweig no longer cooks the jam at home; it’s made for her in a commercial facility.

“They use the same sources you do and make your product, but in much larger batches,” she explains, “which might be the best thing ever because there are only so many times you can make strawberry jam before you want to slit your throat.”

Learning everything as she goes, from distribution and fulfillment to profit margins, Braunschweig has come a long way from the days of FedExing a few dozen jars to fill web orders.

"I’m having to deal with my first freight shipment, where it goes on a pallet on an 18-wheeler coast-to-coast. What’s that all about?” she says with a laugh. “It’s no longer the jam of the month club; when you’re selling retail and they want to restock strawberry, you have to be able to restock it. You can’t just be like, ‘Eh, I’m only doing that in May.’ ”

Braunschweig has picked up other tricks of the trade, like learning more practical alternatives to using fresh fruit, but also looking beyond jars to find other ways to sell her product. She says she may develop additional items such as syrups or chutneys, but for now, she’s exploring other possibilities for the line. For example: “Every time you have a gourmet cake with a raspberry filling, someone needs to make that filling. Or when you go to a restaurant and they serve you jam with your toast, someone’s providing that. So it’s not so much about expanding the product, but expanding how it sells.”