Good morning friends, This is John Arbuckle from Roam Sticks wishing you a nice October day.
I'm really pleased with how our Kickstarter is going right now. Big thanks to everybody who has backed it!
I have enjoyed all the thoughts people have about nitrites. It really shows that the people involved are educated and paying attention!
In all things we do with meat, we answer to the USDA. They have exclusive authority over what we can and cannot put on our label (our very small label).
We do use sea salt and celery juice powder. Both of those things have some amount of nitrites. Nonetheless, the USDA defines that as nitrite free. I personally think that
they should change their labeling requirements to say "synthetic nitrite free" just to be more clear. More than anything its a weird labeling rule from the federal government.
Funny story about working with the USDA on labeling: Most snack sticks out there have red dye in the casing. For some reason it is not required to put 'red dye' on the label.
When we tried to write, "No Red Dye" on our label, and they wouldn't let me! Go figure. You are allowed to use it and not tell people, but if you go out of your
way to not use it they won't let you.
In terms of not putting our ingredients on the Kickstarter, that was my oversight. We will put it on the FAQ page, which we weren't allowed put up until the campaign was live (which was Monday). We are super psyched about our ingredients, but in the rush of managing the campaign, I just plum forgot.
We're remedying that right now. Should be up pretty soon. Its on our website it that helps anyone in the short term.
Big thanks to Joel Salatin, who did on 2 occasions sell us some pork. he was over stocked and we helped him reduce his inventory. We met at a Mother Earth News fair where I was speaking about how to graze pigs and he was speaking about farming. We gave him some sticks. I guess he liked them because now we make sticks for him out of his pigs that he is selling locally to his customers.
I should say that the resulting snack stick flavor and quality has little to do with him though. We raise most of the meat ourselves. Once we have the trim, we grind it twice, naturally ferment it, add some spices (like sea salt and pepper) and then smoke it using real hickory smoke, (at a USDA approved facility, not our kitchen). We hope you love them, but if you don't, blame us, not him.
BTW, we are also homesteaders and live near other homesteaders. (Hi Mike!) Part of the reason we are started making a product is because we would like to see something that is controlled by farmers and not corporations. Most products are made by big companies who are not connected to the way the food was produced.
I love to answer questions. Please feel free to write to me if you need anything at
Roamsticks@gmail.com
