CUSTODIANS OF THE COTTAGE
Meet me, Russ, and my beautiful wife, Debbie, who are the current custodians of Bumblebee Cottage! On this page, we’ll spill the beans about who we are and where we came from and what our hopes for the future are.
About Us
We’ll start by saying that whilst we live in beautiful Cornwall, we don’t actually come from the County, though as kids, both of us separately used to visit this exact area with our respective families. We moved full time to Delabole in 2014 and for much of the first 10 years or so we spent renovating the 300 odd year old Cottage.
During the Covid years, we were fortunate enough to purchase the land behind the Cottage, which we now call the Orchard, as we diligently sourced and planted several dozen rare and in some cases nearly extinct, Cornish Apple Trees.
Individually, we ‘Russ’ and ‘Deb’ were born and raised within 25 miles of each other in the South East, but at the same time, we were Worlds apart. Russ spent his early years on a Council estate in Brixton, South London, whilst Debbie grew up in leafy Paddock Wood, in Kent.
After marrying, we lived in Andalucia, Spain, for a number of years – we learnt the language and the culture, and part of that culture lives on today in the food we cook, teach and manufacture. In fact, the vast majority of our sauces are derived from experiences of travelling in various parts of the World including our favourite island of Jamaica, the streets and the Medina of Marrakech, Western Europe, and of course, good old Blighty!
By trade, both of us worked for one of the World’s biggest Banks (at the time) – Russ in the City of London on ‘Projects’ which gave him a great basis for Project Management, negotiations and workflows, and Deb in the branch network as a branch manager, giving her invaluable customer service and face-to-face skills.
After leaving the Bank, Deb veered off to become a Mortgage Broker and Russ started a Digital Design agency – careers we each stayed in for over 20 years.
We started Bumblebee Cottage (the ‘business’) not as full time vegetarians, or eco-warriors, but because we felt there was a gap in the market for a ‘Chilli brand’ that eclipsed not just sauces and jams, but a whole way of cooking and living, especially outdoors. Nowadays, around 80% of all of vegetables that we eat are home grown at the Cottage, and we rarely eat meat. If we do, it has to be local and with some provenance.
The sauces that bare the Bumblebee Cottage logo, all contain Chillies that are grown, and hand picked by Russ from our own Polytunnels, without the use of any pesticides, and every bottle is hand filled and hand labelled in Cornwall.
Whilst Cornwall is a relatively small county, it is mostly surrounded by the sea and perhaps because of this, the County has a reputation for ‘foodies’ and top chefs. Coupled also with our mild all year round climate, we are able to grow Chillies for longer periods, and thus possibly to a greater heat level, directly to a local market very receptive to quality Cornish artisan food. But this website allows those not in this wonderful County to purchase too.
During 2025 we turned out attention to growing many more Chillies on site as we really want to get our Chillies in more and more local food types. We have been in talks with Chocolatiers, Pasta makers, 2 x Breweries and a Rapeseed Oil producer and we will be expanding our range, in time, to some or all of these additional, product lines. Watch this space! We will of course continue to source and grow the very hottest Chillies on the planet.