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Mark Overbay was meant to make nut butter. He just didn’t know it until five years ago.
Growing up in eastern Tennessee, food and cooking were central to Mark’s lifestyle. He comes from a long line of gardeners and big Southern families, and “knew the difference between a homegrown, ripe tomato and a grocery store tomato from a young age.” But it wasn’t until he graduated from Davidson College that he started developing a distinct interest in food sustainability. After a year working at YES! Magazine in Seattle, which often reported on sustainability and local agriculture, he applied to the Peace Corps and “was assigned to a very rural community in Zimbabwe, even by sub-Saharan African standards,” he says. “There was no electricity, no running water; everybody was a subsistence farmer.” One of their major crops? Peanuts. When it came time to harvest, everyone pitched in to sort, clean and then roast the nuts over open fires. They would use stones to grind them into a coarse paste, and then add ingredients like salt, coconut oil and honey.
“I grew up a major peanut butter lover,” Mark says, a trait perhaps passed down from his father, who earned the nickname “Big Spoon” when a young Mark blurted out the phrase after seeing Dad eating from a jar of peanut butter with a giant serving spoon.
“But this was completely different; a version of a food I had eaten five days a week my entire life that was elevated to this incredible freshness, intensity of flavor, totally different texture, and it was all because of the freshness of the ingredients and the care that went into making it. That was a really transformative experience for me.
“And I really wish I had the idea for this business then. But I didn’t.”
Mark’s experience helping those farmers did inspire a desire to work in food and nutrition in some way. He spent five years in D.C. employed in the communications department at the American Diabetes Association’s national office, then as a staff writer specializing in health and nutrition for a consulting firm, and finally as communications manager at the United Fresh Produce Association, all the while working on local farms and at farmers’ markets on the weekends. Then, a cup of coffee changed everything.
“I ordered an espresso one day at my favorite coffee shop, and it was 1,000 times better than the one I had the day before.” Turns out, the cafe had switched suppliers to Counter Culture Coffee. “I became really fascinated,” Mark says. “I went out and bought a book about coffee, I started going online and reading about coffee and Counter Culture and saw how they treated coffee as food. They work closely with the farmer in developing quality on the agriculture side and then, every single step along the way, they make decisions based on quality, sustainability, transparency, and I was so impressed by that.” When a Counter Culture employee came up to do a tasting, Mark got to chatting with him, which led to an interview with one of the co-owners and then a marketing job at their headquarters here in Durham.
“It was a big risk,” Mark says. “It was over a 50% pay cut, and I didn’t know anyone down here, but it was one of the best decisions I ever made.”
Fast forward several years to fall 2010. Mark has just purchased his first house in Durham and is doing some woodworking in the backyard. He builds up an appetite; his favorite snack of a sliced apple and peanut butter comes to mind.
“I don’t know why, but the memory of Zimbabwe, of that hand- crushed peanut butter came back to me really intensely,” he says. “I realized I had in my kitchen a perfectly fine, all-natural peanut butter, but it really doesn’t compare to the fresh-roasted peanut butter. And then I thought, ‘Why isn’t anybody doing that? We’re in the middle of peanut- growing country. Somebody’s got to be doing that.’”
A quick Google search proved that, actually, no one was.
“I thought, ‘I’m just going to start making my own,’” Mark says. “I did have the idea immediately that it could be a business, but first and foremost, I was just doing it because that’s what I wanted to eat at the moment.”
He made his first batch that very day, a combination of peanuts and pecans plus coconut oil, honey and sea salt. He called some friends over to taste it – everyone agreed he was on to something. He had his girlfriend, now wife, Megan, try it, too. “I was like, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about starting my own business,’ and she says, ‘Well, it’s got to be nut butter,’” Mark says. “And before I could even say it out loud, she says, ‘And you have to call it Big Spoon.’
I was like, ‘That’s it, I’m destined to do this.’”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_column_text]
The Scoop
Big Spoon Roasters now produces more than 10 varieties of nut butters, which are sold at more than 50 purveyors in North Carolina alone, in addition to 37 other states, the District of Columbia and in Tokyo.
You may have noticed that Big Spoon nut butter now comes in custom-made, 10-ounce jars. You may have also noticed that, despite 25% more peanut butter, the price has remained the same. “As we’ve grown, I’m able to buy ingredients, packaging and labels in bigger bulk purchases,” Mark says. “So we save money, which increases our profit margin, and I wanted to pass some of those savings on to our customers.”
A popular item at the farmers’ markets, nut butter bars have recently become a wholesale product for Big Spoon. Their first batch of apricot pepita can be found at Cocoa Cinnamon, Bean Traders and Bull City Running Co. Look for the cherry pecan bar later this year.
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