We had the pleasure of visiting our favorite organic almond farmer Brian last week to witness the almond bloom nature magic! The trees blossoming and being pollinated by bees furiously over the course of the approximately ten-day bloom are responsible for creating the delicious almonds that we alchemize into sprouted almond butter. The beauty of this act of life surging abundantly in spring inspired our logo. Check out what we saw:

 

All of this magic relies on water, however, and with the worst drought in recorded history in California, almond crops across the state are imperiled this year. Brian is lucky that his well hasn’t run dry yet! Other farmers are not so lucky. Please read this East Bay Express article on California’s Thirsty Almonds to get a sense of just how serious the drought is and what we can do to make almond agriculture more sustainable.

After many fan requests from the Santa Cruz area, we are happy to be able to announce our first presence in the region at New Leaf Community Market in Felton! We are in conversation with the rest of the local chain about selling in their other locations (the Felton store is independently owned.)

Meanwhile, we have been enjoying selling to the South Bay at the Campbell Farmer’s Market on Sundays in downtown Campbell! Come say hi if you are in the region. We are looking forward to starting at the California Avenue Farmer’s Market in Palo Alto in March.

For a complete list of stores and farmer’s markets and online outlets where you can buy our product, please visit our Where to Buy page.

We are looking to move to a larger facility in April to be able to meet the widespread demand for our product – stay tuned!

 

We are excited to be one of the newest members of Credibles, a crowd-funding site for food entrepreneurs! Sign up on their site to get your edible credits with us here: https://credibles.org/offering/philosopher

Here’s how it works:

On the Credibles page for our business, you see the description of the business, our funding campaign, and the rewards we offer you as a supporter.

Choose an amount you’d like to pre-pay us and click the “Buy Now” button on our page. Follow the payment instructions for Paypal. If it’s your first time using Credibles, you’ll need to sign up with your email address or through Facebook.

In your account, you will receive a balance of Credibles, as specified in our offer. You can redeem them at any time for our product. This way, we get them money up front, which helps our business grow, and you get sprouted almond butter through time, which helps your body, mind, and spirit.

Using your prepaid credits

When you visit us, you don’t need your wallet. Just say, “I’m paying with Credibles”. We will deduct the amount of your purchase from your prepaid Credibles balance. Credibles are worth $1 each when you redeem them. On the Credibles website or with their mobile apps, you can always check your balance and track how you have been “eating” your prepaid credits. Redeem at one of our farmer’s markets: Santa Rosa, Montclair, Campbell, at a special event we’re attending, or in person with us.

At the San Francisco Green Festival we launched our 4 oz Sample/Gift jars! They are available in in both our Naked and Alchemy flavors and Creamy and Crunchy textures at the Campbell, Montclair, and Santa Rosa Farmer’s Markets.

Apologies to all the customers and customers-to-be scattered around the country who have been waiting patiently for our online ordering section of the website to open. We have been working hard trying to figure out this new avenue for our business while providing for all the hungry customers in the Northern California region. We hope to open the store in spring 2014!

We are in the Entrepreneur Spotlight at the Slow Money Northern California meeting tonight from 6-8 in San Francisco! Hope to see some of you there. Details here.

You haven’t seen a post in over a month. That’s not because nothing has been happening; it’s because EVERYTHING has been happening!

We decided at the last minute to become a vendor at the Santa Rosa Heirloom exposition, so that meant the whole beginning of September was dedicated to PRODUCING AS MUCH PRODUCT AS PHYSICALLY AND HUMANLY POSSIBLE in a maniacal attempt to sell to over three thousand people! Luckily, my Dad started his visit for a month to help us with the business at the beginning of September, so with his help we produced nearly fifty cases and had enough to serve over 250 new customers at the Expo!

Check out our crew and booth:

 

At the end of September, we enjoyed providing high quality protein to the veg*ns of San Francisco at the World Veg Festival in Golden Gate Park!

On Monday, we decided at the last moment to become a vendor at the Bioneers conference in San Rafael! We just set up our booth and are super excited to vend Friday – Sunday at our favorite gathering of activists re-designing every sector of society. Check out more info here: http://conference.bioneers.org/

We are also in several new markets: Driver’s Market in Sausalito, Andy’s Produce Market in Sebastopol (coming later this week), Elliott’s Natural Foods in Sacramento, and Montclair Farmer’s Market.

An innovative marketplace that we are very excited about is an online market, GoodEggs.com. They do farm-to-fridge groceries; their mission is to grow and sustain local foodsystems worldwide. They deliver to San Francisco, Peninsula, East Bay, and Marin! Check out our webstand: http://www.goodeggs.com/thephilosophersstoneground

 

Attention Davisites, the Davis Food Co-op will be open all night Saturday night to help tenants who are transitioning from one place to another! They are offering free food samples, live music, and raffles.

You may know that almonds are excellent for increasing endurance. The Philosopher’s Stoneground will be offering free samples of our stone ground sprouted almond butters to fuel those waiting for their new homes (and anyone else who wants some delicious fuel)! Go there any time from 6-10 p.m. and find Ashley, our demo fairy, then enter creamy and/or crunchy paradise 🙂

Read the Enterprise article here.

I executed my first demo at Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco on Sunday and it was a huge success! People loved the Almond Alchemy and bought all jars on the shelves but two. Here’s some select feedback:

“Unbelieveable.” – Rainbow employee who proceeded to rep the product to all his co-workers.

“Genius!”

“Heavenly. Thank you for doing this. It’s so hard to find good food.”

The love is spreading! Coming soon to a market near you.

 

 

 

I launched my sprouted almond butter business three months ago today on Earth Day with an email to several community listservs in Davis. This generated dozens of orders that have constantly flowed up to this moment! It’s been a wild ride keeping up with demand and building a business from the ground up, but it is a great pleasure to provide the intelligent nourishment for which people have shown to be so hungry.

I wanted to celebrate by sharing before and after pictures from my first demo at the Davis Food Co-op. It was a Wednesday night, but I ended up selling 14 jars in a three-hour demo, leaving just a couple in the store!

Before my first Davis Food Co-op demo:

 

 

After my first Davis Food Co-op demo:

 

Speaking of the Davis Food Co-op, I’ll be there this Thursday, July 25th from 5-7 for their Member Appreciation Fair. They will roast a whole pig at this event and have bouncy houses, prizes and samples. If you haven’t gotten a taste of the next step in the evolution of nut butter, I will be giving out free samples of my stone ground sprouted almond butter at this event! Come and indulge in your choice of creamy or crunchy texture.

I’m humbled and honored to announce that The Philosopher’s Stoneground Sprouted Nut Butter is the newest product available in Rainbow Grocery, a magical worker-owned cooperative in San Francisco! Rainbow was one of the things that first inspired me to move to the West Coast: a coruncopia of the most innovative health food products on the planet. Now I am grateful to be among the offerings of delicious food designed to serve people and planet!

The first jar was purchased by a chef from Oakland who was very excited to try my fresh new product while purchasing almond butter in the bulk section. Hopefully in August I will be able to offer five-gallon bucketfuls to buy in bulk, as my new stone grinder Big Krushna is on her way….