Maine Crisp Founder Karen Getz’s mission is to pair wonderful ingredients together in products that consumers will love. An award-winning cheese maker, Getz also has received sofi and NEXTY Award nods for Maine Crisp thanks to combining walnuts in two different ways (chopped and blended) with buckwheat flour and dried fruit. The result? A product with one consumer complaint: eating the entire box at once.
How did the Maine Crisp concept begin?
I’ve been a cheese maker for many years, and the problem always was what to pair? I put in all this time making cheese, and I didn’t want a cracker that was going to overwhelm the cheese. I needed one that would complement it nicely. And in the gluten-free space there was really nothing that could hold up well to cheese. Our Crisps are loaves of bread first, and then they get sliced and re-baked; it’s a two-step biscotti process. We focus on the flavor of the loaf first and the crispiness so they can have shelf life and can be eaten as a snack cracker.
Walnuts and buckwheat flour are an interesting combination.
There are certain things that go really well with buckwheat, and walnuts is certainly one of them. They complement each other nicely. Buckwheat can be very flavorful. For some people it has too much flavor, so when you’re creating the recipes you’re trying to balance it out. We want to support our local ag community, and our Crisp buckwheat flour is purchased from a farm in Northern Maine. They grow it; they mill it, and they’re certified gluten-free.
I tend to make what I like to eat, and I love nuts and dried fruit. Using walnuts adds such a nice flavor. What I like about working with walnuts is that depth of flavor, and we mill our own walnuts and turn it into walnut flour. That’s what’s in the Savory Fig & Thyme. It adds this nice dimension versus just regular flour. We use buckwheat flour; it’s gluten-free, but we like using the walnut flour in the Crisp to elevate the flavor more.
I love working with flavors — At home I’ve been perfecting a walnut, banana and chocolate chip muffin, and I think I finally nailed it. It has chopped walnuts and a blend of walnut flour. The oils in the walnuts add to that flavor as well.
Is the muffin going to be a future product?
Probably not. We are, however, looking at gluten-free, grain-free cookies, and walnuts would play a part in those.
We love the transparent new packaging.
I started in the kitchen with the little bags, and after a few trial and error runs we took on this new packaging. We wanted it to be elegant, really show the customer what’s inside, so when they see — we put a window in — they can see the walnuts, they can see the dried fruit.
If I see a beautiful picture of a CPG product, and I open it up and it disappoints me because it doesn’t look like the picture, I’m mad. I feel like I’ve been duped. I want people to have confidence that whatever picture we put on that box along with the window that’s what’s inside.
When we have Wild Blueberry Walnut they see pieces of walnut in those Crisps. The Savory Fig & Thyme has smaller pieces since we use the ground walnut. We like to be able to show those ingredients — we had a local artist who did the design of the nuts, spices and fruit on the package that says, ‘This is an artisanal product that we care greatly about.’ This is not your normal cracker.
You’ve certainly made a name for yourself on the awards circuit.
It’s the quality of the ingredients. Start with good ingredients, and you’re ahead of the game. Then caring about what we’re putting into our Crisps. Not all walnuts are the same, and ours are always California Walnuts. Those we love! They’re consistent, and that has an impact on the overall flavor of the product when trying to come up with a unique combination of flavors. With the Crisp we try to have something where the flavor evolves as you’re eating it.
Follow Maine Crisps @MaineCrisp.
Products are mentioned for informational purposes only and inclusion does not imply an endorsement.
