We believe that food matters - that it should be delicious, nutritious, and good for all those involved in producing it. That’s why we use only the highest quality, sustainable ingredients from farmers and producers we trust, handcraft each batch to order, and never compromise food quality. We also believe that a small business should be a force for good in its local community and beyond.
Last month, we launched a crowdfunding campaign (text below) to raise awareness about our story, values-driven business model, and—through the generosity of our community—funds to support our expansion and buildout of our "forever home": our larger HQ and production space, six miles down the road from our current facility. Due to disparities between contractor estimates and actual costs, the buildout of our space has been significantly more than initially planned for. We've compiled this video, illuminating a bit about our process, passion, and what we envision for the space and Big Spoon as a whole. We hope that, regardless of if you're able to contribute to this endeavor financially, that you'll continue supporting our small, values-driven business through purchasing our products, sharing them with friends and family, or just by sharing this campaign with your circles. We're immensely grateful for the love from our community and couldn't do this without you. Find more on our campaign and contribute here.
Big Spoon Roasters Community Lift Campaign
We are Mark and Megan Overbay, co-founders of Big Spoon Roasters, a maker of handcrafted, small-batch nut butters and snack bars in North Carolina. When Mark was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zimbabwe, he missed his favorite food – peanut butter – and adapted a local method of pounding fresh-roasted peanuts with stones, resulting in the best peanut butter he’d ever tasted.
10 years later, after realizing that no one was making fresh, small-batch peanut butter from sustainable ingredients, we started making it from scratch. We then poured our passions for great food, community, and sustainability into a business with the mission to create a healthier relationship with our planet through delicious, nutritious foods made without compromise. For more than 11 years, we’ve been steadily building an independent, values-based community of team members, suppliers, and customers centered on exceptional quality, innovation, integrity, transparency, and sustainability.
Growth for good.
Nothing is more rewarding than crafting food for the betterment of people’s health and happiness. To meet the growing demand for our products, we need to move into a larger space during a time of skyrocketing real estate and construction costs. We started this campaign to directly communicate who we are, why we do what we do, and how we’re trying to preserve the values-based business model we’ve worked so hard to build. Financial support from this campaign will help maintain our independence and cover some of the ever-increasing renovation costs of what we hope will be our “forever home.”
How we will use funds raised
Funds raised through this campaign will go toward renovating a new home for our business, which will better accommodate our growing team and operations. The additional space will also help drive innovation and provide the opportunity for further expansion into additional markets, product lines, and services.
How much we hope to raise
Much of the project funding is coming directly from our sales and personal savings. Through this campaign we hope to close the gap - $50k to help us get to the finish line. Even if we don’t reach our goal, every penny raised will go toward the project, whether it’s enough for a new pack of nails, gallon of paint, or flooring for the dish room. We believe deeply in the values and positive impact of Big Spoon Roasters and are committed to it for the long haul.
Perks & Appreciations
- Exclusive t-shirts, stickers, and online sales.
- The ability to bring back one of your favorite seasonal or “retired” recipes no longer in production.
- The opportunity to work directly with us to create your dream nut butter recipe.
More than anything, we hope this campaign makes you more aware of who we are, what we do, and why we do it.
The Impact of Your Support
By supporting Big Spoon Roasters, you are backing a uniquely independent food business. While it’s common for food businesses to outsource manufacturing, we’ve remained committed to in-house production, even as we’ve grown. This not only ensures the best quality and food safety; it also creates sustainable Living Wage jobs in our community.
Our production process also remains unique. “Small batch” and “handcrafted” are not just words to us but are rather the core of how we do things. For us, a batch of nut butter yields only about 100 jars, and we make batches of 300 bars at a time. This allows us to deliver a freshness premium that’s only possible through small-batch, in-house production.
Our ingredient integrity is second to none, as we put a great deal of work into sourcing and testing each one, proudly celebrating our suppliers, who include beekeepers, salt makers, bean-to-bar chocolate artisans, and of course, farmers. We only use whole, real ingredients and never “flavors” or chemicals. We also offer unprecedented ingredient transparency. We don’t use refined sweeteners, hydrogenated oils, or palm oil, which are found in many nut butters. Not only does palm oil provide no nutritional value, but its production is a leading cause of global deforestation.
Changing the way people think about nut butters and snack bars is also at the core of what we do. A few of our innovations include being the first business to use chai spices, citrus, apple pie spices, cocoa nibs, sorghum, and house-toasted coconut in nut butters. We created the first nut butters with combinations of nuts such as almonds and pistachios, peanuts and pecans, and almonds and walnuts. We were also the first to make nut butter-based snack bars in-house.
In addition to paying our team members certified living wages, we offer unusually robust benefits, including insurance, local farm CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) memberships, a monthly wellness benefit, matching contributions to retirement funds, free products every week, profit-based bonuses, continuing education in career-related subjects, and more. We also have a cruelty-free workplace and do not use cleaning products that have been tested on animals.
As part of our community giving commitment, we also package and donate each week’s excess nut butter to hunger-reducing organizations in our community.
Risks & Challenges
We have a great plan in place that includes a realistic timeline for renovations. However, with any construction project and now more than ever, there are inherent risks, such as unexpected cost increases for materials, supply chain delays, natural disasters, and equipment damage or theft. Thankfully, we are working with an experienced general contractor whom we trust. When obstacles arise, they always guide us through the best, most economical solutions.
Other Ways You Can Help
If our values, products, or approach to business resonate with you, we would really appreciate your support beyond or outside this campaign, whether by purchasing our products or sharing our products and this campaign with friends, family, or your social network. We are immensely grateful for our community and your support through the years. Thank you.