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The love of a good food adventure drives Karen’s story. You could say Maine Crisp has been 25 years in the making, from her first sampling of buckwheat in San Jose’s Japantown, slurping down cold soba noodles, to visiting the expansive buckwheat fields of Maine’s Aroostook County. It’s been a wild ride.
Sunkissed, the natural food scene, wood-fired bread growing roots to start a movement. Karen and Steve Getz met renowned oven builder Alan Scott and Bay Village Breads owners, Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson, where conversations about wild caught yeast and natural fermentation got the Getzs' crust-curious. Between readings of Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America, and Karen’s full time raising of two young daughters, the couple decided to move back east with bread and good food on their minds.
With a Jenson 8” grist mill and a homebuilt, high-moisture, proof box, Karen and Steve began experimenting with Desum bread. With help from friends and Alan Scott himself, the couple built the first of two wood fired ovens they would go on to use. Karen homeschooled the girls between baking projects as Steve set out proofing schedules and met his future business partner, Michael Ross, while he continued working in tech to support their food projects.
An hour from Philly and continually dedicated to making bread, the Getz's set up a small homestead on 46 acres, adding chickens, goats, and vegetable gardening to their work. Under a white oak timber frame hand cut by a friend, the second oven with Scott was built on this new property. Karen taught school trips bread baking skills while milling organic wheat and managing 17 hour cool fermentations. Visits to Northeast Organic Farming Association conferences at local Pennsylvania universities spurred the couples’ interest in pasture management and the wild idea to begin dairy farming with their sights soon set on Vermont (did this alarm their daughters? Yes. Vermont? What is that.)
The family moved to a farm nestled in the Champlain Valley on a knoll between the Adirondacks and Green Mountains. With almost 300 acres transitioned to certified organic and shipping award winning milk, the couple were curious about adding value to their operation. Karen began experimenting with stove-top cheese aged in buckets with Steve as her taste tester. He is quoted, saying “Huh, not bad, tastes like cheddar”.
That’s a small win.
Steve constructed a straw bale insulated, radiant-cooled cheese cave as a test, while Karen devoured cheesemaking books and attended workshops with legendary cheesemaker, Peter Dixon.
Still a full-time mom, full-time cheesemaker, part-time dairy farmer, retired quilter and with breadmaking put to rest for while, Karen busied herself with the creation of four farmstead cheeses. The eclectic herd: a motley crew of Normandies, Jerseys, Ayrshires, Holsteins, Belted Galloways, Brown Cows, Guernseys and every cross in between were milked seasonally in the mornings by Steve. The warm raw milk was pumped directly into the make room fresh and without a cooling process. The cheeses were named after dances: Bouree, Sarabande, Menuet and Lindy Hop. The dance was inspired by the kicking up of heels by young heifers when first sent out to pasture.
Karen won multiple American Cheese Society awards for her cheeses that were featured on prolific tasting menus. She credited the quality of the product to the simplicity of the make process and importance of grass-fed milk delivering unparalleled flavor and quality during the ripening process. After their daughters were off to college, the couple sold the farm to Steve’s sister and the land began feeding pasture raised Berkshire pigs. Steve took a job working for Organic Valley managing eastern New England farmers and was taking many trips to Maine’s northernmost county. It was on one of these trips that Karen learned about the St. John Valley’s buckwheat production and the couple decided to move to Maine.
Itching to create another food product, Karen began experimenting with a baking endeavor, crisps, a cracker made in a biscotti-like process. Inspired by her trip to Aroostook County, the quality of Maine sourced buckwheat, and the opportunity to develop a new product, Karen baked her first batches of crisps in the home kitchen. Licensing the space soon followed, and quickly the Getz kitchen and sunroom became production, packaging, and shipping stations all at once. Support from co-ops and natural food markets in Maine gave her the confidence to apply for external funding and she soon received financial assistance from Slow Money Maine and Coastal Enterprises Inc. With this momentum the business was able to move from the home kitchen to a recently vacated restaurant location in downtown Waterville, Maine.
Karen's Cranberry Almond Crisps went on to receive a sofi Award in 2018 and soon after, the Getz's were reconnected with Steve’s former business partner, Michael Ross. Michael came on as CEO and he and Steve worked to raise capital for the company. Maine Crisp was able to hire more staff, bringing on both Claire and Rachel Getz, Karen and Steve’s daughters. Claire is the diligent manager of quality control and Rachel works as the company designer and top cracker snacker. With a rounded out staff, the business scaled production and built a distribution network. Karen, between hours at the bakery and patching and painting the Waterville house, was still relishing the coast of Maine and the bounty of foods the state has to offer.
As Waterville is marking the map once again, Karen is happy to be a part of that process. The support and resources for small food startups has made this endeavor feasible and it is an exciting place to be contributing to that growth. The stories up to this one have been littered with good food, hard lessons and relentless dedication to quality products.
