Mark and Megan Overbay
Illustration by Mars Reyes Sevilla
Founders of Big Spoon Roasters, Mark and Megan Overbay, have taken peanut butter (and Durham) to another level! We talked to these food artisans:
How does a new company find a market with a national appetite?
Be completely, madly in love with the work you do and the products you make. Believe without doubt that your work solves a problem, fills a need, and makes the world a better place. As the maker, if you don’t truly believe what you make is the best possible version of its form, it’s always going to be a stretch to think that others will embrace it.
Be patient and earn your place in the market one customer at a time.
Be a part of a trend only if you started it. Innovate, always innovate.
What can help to make organic* food affordable?
This is a big question! There’s so much that we and our institutions could do to prioritize making whole, healthy food more accessible. It’s true that organic foods on average cost more, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Organic farming requires intentionally slower, forward-looking, and labor-intensive activities like building soil fertility with compost or cover crops, rather than quick sprays of chemical inputs. That additional labor cost eventually reaches the price tag.
However, most of what I read predicts that the divide between “organic” and “conventional” foods are narrowing when it comes to cost. Conventional crops have artificially low pricing dependent upon a brief and quickly ending era of cheap fossil fuels, a stable and predictable climate, and government policies such as commodity subsidies that benefit large-scale, monocrop farming. As these principal elements of modern agriculture change, organic practices are better-suited to weather the changes.
Here are a few ways to make organic food more affordable in your life:
Cook more! Diverting more of your food dollars away from processed foods to whole foods you can prepare at home will significantly stretch your weekly food budget. Get friends and family involved (even virtually) and have fun with it.
Make meal plans and buy in bulk. Natural food co-ops like Durham Food Co-op do a great job of hunting for value for their members and offering deals on bulk purchases for members. Whole Foods, Harris Teeter, Lowe’s, and Food Lion also offer a lot of organic foods in bulk. If you plan your meals for the week in advance, you can build meals around what’s seasonal and/or on sale.
If possible, grow your own food! Use pots, raised beds, community plots, coffee cans – whatever is on hand – and even a few homegrown plants in your life can make a positive difference in your diet and personal economics.
Vote for representatives who support sustainable agriculture, resources for organic farming, and reducing subsidies given to conventional monocrop industries dependent on cheap fossil fuels. Organic farming also uses fossil fuels, but much less and in ways more easily adaptable to new technologies.
Where else do you put peanut butter besides bread?
Fresh fruit! We eat nut butter with fresh fruit more than any other way. Fresh slices of apple with nut butter is the perfect snack. Swirled into oatmeal or yogurt. Smoothies. Nut butters are also versatile ingredients in sauces, spreads, and baked goods. Our go-to basil pesto recipe uses our Almond Butter with Wildflower Honey as a main ingredient, and the basil comes from a small planter in our backyard!
What would you pack on a trip to space (besides peanut butter)?
Thinking about space travel is romantic and exciting on one level, but it feels irresponsible to pour resources into leaving our planet when we could be trying much harder not to destroy it. We are seeking ways that we can both personally, and as a business, make a positive impact on the future of the planet. We source sustainably produced ingredients, refuse to use palm oil, package in glass and recycled materials, and purchase only cleaning and personal care products that have not been tested on animals. We believe we can make a difference for the future of our planet, and that we must innovate and channel resources in areas that will help us to do so. Of course, that journey on earth still involves things we’d prefer not to live without (and some we likely couldn’t bring into space) - our amazing dogs, exercise gear, an Audible subscription, and good wine.
*Organic here broadly means natural foods which may or may not be Certified Organic by the USDA.
