Mark Overbay and his team at Big Spoon Roasters in Durham, NC are nuts about a lot of things…nuts being one of them. Big Spoon has established itself nationally as being one of the few small-batch artisanal producers of roaster nut butters here in the US and the inspiration for his products comes from many different life-experiences including time spent in Zimbabwe with the Peace Corps. He’s also nuts about a truly fantastic philosophy: that food should be delicious, nutritious, and just all-around good for everyone involved from start to finish. Provenance Food & Wine staffer Nathan was able to get the inside scoop from Mark on why Big Spoon has a big heart…
1. PFW For starters Mark, thanks so much for introducing me (and our customers at Provenance) to your line of Big Spoon Roasters nut butters…for being such a relatively simplistic recipe (nuts, coconut oil, wildflower honey and sea salt), it really packs a ton flavor into the jar. For our readers at home who may not already know, the cornerstone philosophy of your business seems to be all about freshness, flavor, and sustainability…all three constantly working in unison together to create a really fantastic final product. What would you say Big Spoon hopes to accomplish with this mentality?
BSR In many ways, we, as a society, have made our food too complicated. Many “food companies” are primarily marketing organizations that focus far more resources on building brand awareness and targeting key demographics than work to increase actual food quality and integrity. At Big Spoon Roasters, we believe that food matters, and that our food choices directly reflect our aspirations for not only our personal health and happiness, but for the well being of our planet and for the generations that follow. Cooking and sharing food with others is a great joy, and we believe that food should be delicious, nutritious, and good for all those involved in producing and eating it. Driven by such values, we source ingredients from only trusted, transparent farms and producers that share this philosophy, and we treat every ingredient with care and reverence.
What do we want to accomplish with this approach? Put simply, we want to make people happy through food, and we’d love to encourage people to apply a healthy degree of intention toward their food choices in the process.
2. PFW You spent a good deal of time working in rural Zimbabwe as a Peace Corp Volunteer, working to, among other things, help families in those areas roast peanuts over open pits creating nut butters using little else besides sea salt and honey. This experience seemed to be the impetus that inspired you to return to the States and work to recreate those flavors and textures with North Carolina-grown nuts and other locally sourced products. Before learning the process first-hand in Africa, was nut butter something you had attempted to make?
BSR While living on Bainbridge Island, WA, during the year before my Peace Corps service, I had two jobs – one in the editorial department of Yes! Magazine and the other as a bartender at the amazing Harbour Public House – both of which, in different ways, introduced me to the islands amazing, eclectic community of cooks, gardeners, and sustainability gurus. A friend at the magazine who taught me a lot about cooking bought almonds by the10-lb bag and one day gave me half of them because she was going out of town for a while. Thinking of ways to use them, I decided to roast a few pounds of them grind them up in my food processor. That, technically, was the first batch of nut butter I every made. I remember it being quite good, but the almonds were Nonpareils and not nearly as rich and flavorful as the Mission-variety almonds we use at Big Spoon Roasters for our almonds butters and blends.
3. PFW When I sat down and started to gather some information about your business and how it started, I really loved reading about your direct involvement with families in Zimbabwe that would all work together to create their roasted peanut butter from scratch. The whole start-to-finish process that brought the community together really helps to reiterate how food can unite people even through something as simple as cooking. As a child was this something you saw in your own household that helped inspire your passion to connect people through food?
BSR My mom is from a Mississippi family who has grown and hunted their own food for generations, and my dad’s East Tennessee family did the same, although due to the often harsh winters of the Appalachian mountains, there is a greater emphasis on canning and food preservation on my dad’s side of the family. Some of my fondest childhood memories are related to food: stirring a cauldron of simmering apple butter over an open fire, helping my dad light hardwood charcoal, hunting with my grandfather, and learning to clean fish with my great-grandfather. In short, I come from a family that comes together around food and its rituals, and I think I’ve always approached food and the community it creates with a certain reverence that I owe to my family on both sides.
4. PFW I always like asking our vendors about the "wow factor", or the spark that got the creative gears turning in your mind which eventually led to you creating Big Spoon Roasters. With your company taking off the way it has been, and you being now fully immersed in the world of small-batch nut butters, was there a specific moment that comes to mind that made you think, "Ok, I can definitely do this for a living and make something beneficial out of it for myself and others"?
BSR There was a moment when I knew I had a good idea for business: when I realized that no one else in the country was making handmade, fresh-roasted, small-batch nut butters. There was a moment when I knew that I had something that would make at least nut butter lovers happy: when I tasted my first batch of Peanut Pecan Butter made with fresh-roasted peanuts, fresh-roasted pecans, raw wildflower honey, and sea salt. There was also a moment when I knew that my passion project could actually generate income: when we were accepted into the very competitive Carrboro Farmers’ Market. However, I’m still trying to figure out if I can do this for a living! We have grown steadily in the 3.5 years since we started, but due to our very manual process and ingredient integrity, our ingredient and labor costs are quite high, and since we deal primarily with nuts, those ingredient costs can be quite volatile. I’m confident, though, that as we continue to find more great, like-minded retail partners like Provenance Food & Wine, that we will continue to grow and create not only a great place to work but also an increasingly positive force in sustainable agriculture and food production, making many people who love nut butter happy along the way.
5. PFW We’re really fortunate to have customers that are as interested and concerned about where our products are coming from as you seem to be in regards to where you source your ingredients. We let those consumers know that Big Spoon Roasters is a local operation in Durham, North Carolina and that you’re all about keeping things healthy and sustainable for everyone involved. This approach seems to be why you’ve been buying your nuts, honeys, spices, etc. from farms not far from home base. Is buying directly from local farmers a source of inspiration for getting into the kitchen and roasting batch after batch of peanuts for your nut butters? Why is supporting local NC farms so important to you and your team?
BSR Big Spoon’s philosophy about food is based on the belief that food matters. It matters to our health, our happiness, and the well being of our planet. We believe that food should be delicious, nutritious, and good for all those involved in producing it. For us, cooking and sharing food with others is a great joy. We source ingredients from only trusted, transparent farms and producers that share this philosophy. Peanuts are a tremendous agricultural resource for the American Southeast, and of our 50 states, North Carolina is ranked sixth in terms of peanut production. We are thrilled to be able to work with local and regional peanut farmers and to be a positive market force for sustainable peanut agriculture.
It’s no accident that Big Spoon Roasters was born (and remains) in Durham, NC, which is in the heart of one of the most dynamic, diverse, and progressive local agriculture communities in the country. We are literally surrounded by hundreds of family-owned farms that grow everything under the sun. When I had the initial vision for Big Spoon, it involved making one nut butter – Peanut Pecan Butter made with local pecans, local peanuts, local honey, and sea salt – that captured our local community in a jar.
6. PFW Before your nut butters had hit the shelves here at Provenance I was able to snag a sample jar to take home and try out in the kitchen…and by that I mean I handed the jar to my roommate and said, “Make something amazing with this. Please and thanks.” I’d say about 45 minutes later we were fighting over who got to eat the last Peanut Almond Butter Flourless Cookie (A mouthful to say, I know…but also crazy delicious!) Basically…being able to experiment with your product at home became the easiest way to recommend your nut butters to our customers. In what ways do you at Big Spoon Roasters strive to expand your products to new customers that haven’t had the pleasure yet?
BSR We love to cook! Nut butters are incredibly versatile, and we encourage lots of experimentation with all of our varieties. The most popular way to enjoy our nut butters is probably my favorite, as well: scooped and spread on fresh fruit like apples, bananas, and pears. I also make a mean Thai-inspired satay sauce with our Peanut Cashew Butter and a great sauce for rice noodles with our Almond Ginger Butter. Beyond that, it’s hard to beat the classic fresh-roasted nut butter spread (generously) on warm toast with bits of fresh fruit, jam, and/or yogurt. We know a lot of great bakers, including my wife Megan, who make all sorts of delectable cookies, brownies, and truffles and other sweet treats with our nut butters. We also make our own fresh, handmade energy bars that we sell at local farmers’ markets, and we have lots of friends who make variations of them with our nut butters at home.
7. PFW Knowing the provenance of our products and being able to point out on a map of exactly where they come from is something we see as a huge benefit to our customers…especially the ones who like to geek out about a products origin as much as we do. Being able to inform them of exactly which region you source ingredients and where they’re being roasted and milled is a major benefit to carrying locally-made products that apply care and attention to detail. What benefits do you feel Big Spoon Roasters is able to offer retailers and consumers alike?
BSR We believe that transparency and integrity are incredibly important in every aspect of food production, and we celebrate our incredible partners in producing our nut butters. Our peanuts are Runner and Spanish variety, grown in Eastern NC near Edenton. Our organic pecans are from a small farm outside of Raleigh and one in Southern TX. Our Mission-variety almonds are grown near Turlock, CA, and are transitional to organic. Our organic cashews are grown in a cooperative of farms in Cuddalore, Brazil. Our raw wildflower honey is from HIllsborough, NC. Our sea salt is from the warm coasts of Sicily, although we are currently experimenting with two domestic salts. More on that soon! Our stone-ground organic chocolate is from Taza in MA and Escazu in NC. Our ginger is grown by small-scale farmers in Fiji. Most ginger that we see in the U.S. comes from huge plantations in China, and we are proud to have found a more sustainable (and delicious) source.
8. PFW I feel like a major highlight to working at Big Spoon Roasters would be the time spent in the ‘lab’ experimenting with different nut butter recipes and flavor pairings. Would you say you have a favorite aspect to running your own business?
BSR I just love working with food – from farm to spoon – and it brings me great joy to take raw ingredients and turn them into something delicious that I can share with others who appreciate our work. It’s incredibly fulfilling. I do love experimenting in the kitchen, but I also love the feeling of working with the same recipe over and over again and learning how ingredients can change over time based on seasonality, storage conditions etc. We have to be consistent in terms of quality, and we take a lot of pride in our consistency of production, batch after batch. In terms of challenges, I love the inherent unpredictability and problem solving that we have to overcome on a daily basis. It keeps me on my toes!
9. PFW I’m sure deciding on the next addition to your product line can be enough to drive you (wait for it…) nuts. But are you guys able to share with us any new developments on the horizon for Big Spoon Roasters that we can tell our customers to keep their eyes peeled for?
BSR We actually just released two wonderful new almond-based nut butters: Almond Ginger Butter and Almond Brazil Butter! Beyond that look for something with Walnuts and something spice by early fall. Thanks again for your support!
