Big Spoon Roasters

Nut Butters, Bars

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April 2018 Featured Retailer: Sugar Island Bakery

We are firm believers in the importance of the third place; somewhere in the community where everyone feels welcome, accessible delicious food abounds, and warm ambiance greets all who visit. On Topsail Island, that place is Sugar Island Bakery, whose customers gush about not only the high-quality baked goods and coffee but also the incredible customer service, which always leaves you walking away feeling like family. Owner Samantha Smith, the self-described “ringmaster of this circus,” creates a fun and lighthearted environment full of whimsy, evident in everything she makes: from decadent multilayer cakes and signature jam bars to the local art and cookbooks that line the shelves.

Part bakery café with a dash of gift shop and a hint of bookstore, Sugar Island offers a little bit of everything to locals and tourists alike. Grab a coffee and pastry to-go, or head to their upstairs lounge area designed to look like a cozy library or living room. Filled with antique tables and books, Sugar Island Bakery is a wonderful place for meeting with friends, or finding the perfect nook for hunkering down solo after a long week.

It’s clear that love for baked goods, books, and making people happy are the driving forces behind this gem of a business.We are so honored that our nut butters are on their shelves and in their beautifully executed confections!

Update: Building on the success of Sugar Island Bakery, the Smith family recently opened Farm to Island Market, a small grocery store dedicated to bringing the best local produce, meats, and products to their community!

#SustainabilitySunday: Employee CSA Benefit

We approach every part of our business — from ingredients and packaging to employee benefits and community involvement — with sustainability in mind. We also believe that food matters to our health, happiness, and the well being of our planet. It should be delicious, nutritious, and good for all involved in producing it.

When the word sustainability is discussed, it is often in reference to material goods, i.e. is this product good for the planet? While this is of the utmost importance, we try to take a holistic view of sustainability and the practices that maintain it. When we do this, we recognize that the well-being of our team members is paramount to our success as a business; if their work and lifestyle are not sustainable, then our business is not sustainable. We created our employee benefits package with this in mind, which, along with subsidized healthcare and a wellness stipend, includes a CSA stipend as well.

A CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, refers to a program in which an individual can pre-purchase a share of the upcoming harvest directly from a local farm. At regular intervals throughout the growing season (usually weekly or bi-weekly), the customer receives a selection of goods that were harvested that week (and often that day!). It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement that allows farmers to secure funds ahead of the busy growing season, and in return, customers receive the freshest possible ingredients with maximum nutritional value. This also strengthens the bond and appreciation between the people who grow food and those who eat it; farmers learn more about the needs of their community while educating them about the food chain, the expanse of vegetable varieties not commonly found in the local supermarket, and encouraging home cooking. Some CSAs include recipe cards to help their customers tackle even the trickiest of vegetables.

In previous years, our employees have joined CSAs from local farms such as Fickle Creek Farm and Elysian Fields Farm and noted that the weekly bounty inspires them to learn how to prepare vegetables that they may not have otherwise. For instance, an abundance of radishes and turnips gave BSR Nut Butter Production Manager Matt McElroy the opportunity to explore myriad ways to prepare these roots, a task he may not have tackled on his own.

By providing $150 to put towards a CSA, we hope to support our employees’ efforts to eat healthy, locally grown meals, and in turn support our local farmers. This year we’re working with Red’s Quality Acre, who have simplified the CSA process for our employees by offering to drop off weekly boxes of produce right here at BSR HQ! One of the things we love about Red’s is their dedication to accessibility: it can be difficult for some community members to pay upfront for an entire season’s worth of veggies, and they are one of the few CSAs in our area who offer a payment plan!

April 2018 Featured Ingredient: Local Raw Wildflower Honey

From our very first batch of nut butters, we’ve always aimed for the perfect balance of roastiness, saltiness, and sweetness. During his time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zimbabwe, founder Mark Overbay had a revelatory experience: peanut farmers would roast and grind their harvest into a think paste and sweeten it with a touch of honey, creating a fresh peanut butter unlike any he’d ever had. When he returned home, he sought to recreate this experience with ingredients local to the Carolinas. A grandson of avid beekeepers, Mark has appreciated the seasonal nuances and incredible flavor of raw wildflower honeys since early childhood, and when Big Spoon Roasters was just an idea, he planned to work with local and regional beekeepers to provide a touch of sweetness to his handcrafted nut butters. He knew that, in addition to its delicious flavor, honey also acts as a natural preservative, helping prevent oxidation of the freshly milled nuts and their oils.

We also choose to use local honey to support the critical efforts of local beekeepers. The importance of bees and their role in pollination and farming cannot be overstated, and beekeepers play a critical role in keeping these populations alive and available to pollinate crops. Basically, without bees, we have no food. As our honey broker explains, “We are all connected. Without the bees, there are far fewer tasty things for us to eat. Without the bees and other insects, there are not songbirds and beautiful flowers. A life rich with diversity is a life that is rich in so many ways!” This is why we are committed to supporting these local beekeepers, who in turn support our local bee population, even though this means we may never be able to be non-GMO certified. For honey to receive non-GMO certification, the bees must have a 4-mile fly radius completely unencumbered by non-organic farmland. Because of the nature of US farming, this means that there are almost no officially non-GMO or organic honeys in the USA. Rather than sourcing honey from outside the US or trekking it in from one of the few remote areas in the country, we opt to keep it local. Anthony Maxfield, the head of the Hawaii Beekeepers Association, explains that organic honey, “is not really the best honey. The best honey you can get is from where you live.”

A lot of our honey comes to us from Cannady Apiaries in Harrells, NC. Their bees spend part of their life pollinating watermelons, blueberries, and other crops, and the other part in swampy and wild areas where they collect pollens from wildflowers, gallberry shrubs, tulip poplars, and other trees. The resulting honey has an incredibly complex, floral flavor that adds additional depth to our nut butters and snack bars. Raw wildflower honey has also been linked to many health benefits, including increased athletic performance (ask Mike Wardian), improved allergies, strengthened immune systems, enhanced memory, and improved sleep.

Interested in more ways to support the bee population? Here are some tips from our honey provider:

1. Buy more local and pesticide-free food and clothing (biodynamic, sustainable).
There is little doubt now about the harm that pesticides, especially neonicotinoids, are doing to honeybees and other pollinator populations (bumblebees, butterflies, moths, etc). In every country that neonics have been introduced, mass bee deaths have followed. They are more deadly than DDT and affect honeybees and other insects by weakening their immune system, making them more susceptible to viruses, parasites and pathogens. Here is a great article if you’d like to learn more about pesticides and our pollinators:
http://ecofarmingdaily.com/pollinators-in-peril/

2. Use natural methods to prevent pests in your garden and home.
Whatever you do to one “pest”, you can potentially be doing to the honeybee and other pollinators. Stop and think before spraying chemical pesticides, broadleaf herbicides, and fungicides at home.
Use pests to fight pests! Provide habitats like clover for predatory pests like wasps, spider mites, praying mantis and ladybugs. Use neem oil and diatomaceous earth, still being concerned to use sparingly because it will kill beneficial and non-beneficial pests. But they do not have the half-life that chemical pesticides have; they wash off easily. Here is a good website for specific natural ways to combat a whole host of pests: https://learn.eartheasy.com/guides/natural-garden-pest-control/

3. Plant pollinator-loving trees, shrubs, and flowering perennials and annuals.  If possible, add a fresh water source for them too.

4.  Balance the desire for a perfect lawn with the needs that pollinators have for those weeds’ flowers to feed them, making sure to be mindful of when the “weeds” are blooming before cutting. One can gain so much pleasure from just watching these pollinators out in your “imperfect” lawn!

5.  Support one of the organizations that are fighting for beekeepers and pollinators. You can do this painlessly through Smile.amazon where Amazon will donate a portion of what you buy to your selected charity, like the pollinator stewardship council.  Or make a donation to or get involved with one of these nonprofits:
http://pollinatorstewardship.org
http://pollinator.org
https://spikenardfarm.org