Kent, the nut butter maker: Helping foodies live healthier lives
This is my craft
Telling the story of a brand and its products might be told quickly, when focusing on the seemingly important and obvious facts. But every story has details woven in it that derive from the people behind and their personal lives. It’s no different with Kent and his small business, Mixed Up Nut Butter.
While Kent established his business after a grocery store stopped carrying his Dad’s favorite nut butter and started making The New Favorite, the first of many nut and seed butters that Mixed Up is now carrying, the full picture unfolds when getting to know him better in our conversation.
I myself am a big fan of nut butters, almond butter and peanut butter are among my favorites, so it’s not a surprise to me, when Kent tells me about the many health benefits that nut butters have, being a much healthier choice, when craving a sweet treat most of all, healthy fats, packed with protein.
Growing up he started getting into cooking in high school. As an avid weightlifter and practicing workouts, his interest was in sports nutrition developing his own meal plan along with his workout programs. Cooking his own food made him come up with healthier versions of the food he wanted to eat.
Classes in food science, a minor in nutrition in college, and a job at supplement store equipped him not only with the basic concepts of foods. But made him realize how real food is the actual support people need to better their lives and health.
The disappearance of Kent’s fathers’ favorite nut butter wasn’t a coincidence, it was meant to be. It was Kent’s chance to start his own business, something that he’d always wanted, as he tells me, and to start bringing joy to people’s days with his nut butters.
Being the youngest in Kent’s family he still remembers the days, when the family would visit Vermont for their weekends and ski vacations traveling North from New York to Southern Vermont, to a different world, escaping and relaxing from the busy city life. After Kent graduated from high school the decision was clear, the family would move to Vermont full time.
Mixed Up Nut Butter wouldn’t be a Vermont product, if there weren’t Vermont typical variations. Two of the most distinct and popular are Maple Creemee, referring to Vermont’s most famous soft serve with maple syrup, and Mud Season, an homage to one of the five seasons of Vermont. Besides the usual spring, summer, fall and winter, the Vermont calendar also has two more seasons, mud season and stick season.
With mud season referring to the time between winter and spring, when the snow is melting and the many dirt roads of Vermont turn into muddy slippery slopes. Stick season marks the time between late October and December, when the leaves have fallen, and frost and the first snowflakes make everything stick to the ground.
I’m curious and want to know how both recipes came about. Kent tells me that his nut butter’s take on the maple creemee only took him three trials, the goal was simple, to create a nut butter that tastes just like a maple creemee.
Many of his nut butters use maple products. Instead of maple syrup, most of them contain maple sugar, though, since the texture of the final product after blending the different nuts and maple syrup wasn’t the one he envisioned.
Mud season was developed with a panel of taste-testers who then got early access to the final product. What’s the secret ingredient of this one? It’s ground coffee and cocoa nibs giving it the typical muddiness every Vermonter is familiar with.
Now being based in the Burlington area, Kent is four years into his business. He openly shares with me the difficulties of being a young entrepreneur. From navigating the complexities of growing a small food brand in a competitive market, to his goal of being able to live off of his business and support him as well instead of merely paying his employees.
At such a young age it doesn’t surprise, either, that Kent has other dreams and desires, too. Andy maybe eventually he’ll reach a point, when selling his nut butters will help him travel the world and work from anywhere, too.
Mixed Up Nut Butters are available in many stores and at farmers markets across the state of Vermont and online.