By day, Megan Gibson is a mild-mannered teacher, but once her day is over, she is busy in a West Philadelphia incubator kitchen creating nut butters for some of Philadelphia’s best gourmet shops and a long list of farmers’ markets and food festivals. Her company, PB & Jams, has set the bar for delicious varieties of nut butters—from peanuts to almonds and beyond.
I first met Megan, a native of West Philadelphia, in 2013 when she was busy making nut butters using a team of conventional food processors. She worked with a symphony of humming machines and churned out nut butters for various stores throughout the city.
As the demand for more nut butters grew, she purchased the grandmother of all robot coupe bulk food processors and can now make 20 quarts of nut butters at a time. Truth be told, I have hunted down Megan’s walnut butter with maple syrup in the middle of a winter snow shower because it is just that good!
Her eight-ounce jars are hand packed with luscious nut butters. Megan tells me, “If you buy an eight-ounce jar of our nut butter, it contains exactly eight ounces of ground nuts.” Read the label of her nut butters—the ingredient list is very short. There are no added oils or corn syrup solids, just nuts.
Her finished products are called nut butters because they are pure and contain no filler. Megan adds, “Take a look at a commercial jar and usually it reads, for example, peanut spread. That’s because it has many additives and isn’t purely peanuts.”
If Megan looks familiar to you, perhaps you’ve seen a national commercial running on TV for Triscuits that features Megan and PB & Jams. Megan won a $10,000 grant from Triscuit to help grow and sustain her business:
Aside from her tent set-ups at local markets and food festivals, Megan also has a food truck (#thecartedition) whose design looks exactly like the label on her food jars. Her mobile division offers sandwiches, desserts and other seasonal favorites made to order. Her food truck is “certified healthy” by the “Healthy Food Truck Initiative” and the Food Trust. PB & Jams doesn’t sell soda, and fresh fruit is offered with each sandwich purchase.
PB & Jams is more than peanuts. Megan has a full line of nut butters that includes peanut, almond, walnut, macadamia and more. Some butters are plain, some have added honey or maple syrup. My favorite is her spicy peanut butter that carries a great kick! The nice thing about PB & Jams is that you can use these pure nut butters to create sauces, main dishes and more.
In case you haven’t figured it out, Megan is also a devout music lover. For years, I thought the name of her company referred to peanut butter’s best friend, jam. But when you head to her food truck (or any market), she has a portable Victrola playing vinyl records. That’s her “jam.” She lists the tunes she is playing on all of her social media posts. (Follow along on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.)
Megan has a team of two employees and a group of part-time employees who work at various farmers’ markets in the five-county area. She and her team produce about 350 eight-ounce jars of butters per week. She is “spreading” her love of peanuts and tree nuts throughout the City of Brotherly love, one delicious bite at a time.
Try Megan’s suggestion—peanut butter with jam—and add some freshly grated lemon zest. It will be the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten.
For a full list of Megan’s whereabouts, head to her website, where you can also learn more about PB & Jams and its mission to “feed people, help people and have fun!”
- Photos: Char Nolan
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