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JC’s Smoked Spitz
Saturday, February 1, 2025
filed under: Utilization/Trade: Confection-Non-oil
Marketing Good Taste &
Good Times From the Southern Red River Valley
Jon and Christy Bernstein are passionate about sunflower seeds and about smoking meats and cheeses. The Wahpeton, N.D., couple ran with those passions to start JC’s Smoked Spitz — ‘J’ for Jon and ‘C’ for Christy.
Jon and Christy have come up with a one-of-a-kind flavor that makes customers want to come back for more. The whole experience has been quite the adventure, and they say the people they’ve met along the way have been the best part.
Jody Kerzman
visited with Jon about JC’s Smoked Spitz.
Jon and Christy Bernstien
Explain the idea behind your product.
My wife and I love to eat sunflower seeds, and we were tired of getting ‘cow tongue’ as we call it. So, I played around with different recipes. We started in our backyard under the cottage food act. There was plenty of trial and error, but we finally got it down to a nice smoky sunflower seed.
How do you utilize sunflower?
Sunflower seeds are one of our main products for production from in-shell and kernel. The flavors we currently offer include original smoked, smoked buffalo, smoked dill and smoky fajita lime sunflower seeds. We also sell smoked sunflower kernel, chili mix and a variety of seasonings that taste great on everything. Our favorites things to season are steak, pork chops, burgers, chicken and eggs. All our products are brined and slow smoked with a combination of woods for a one-of-a-kind flavor you’ve never had before.
Where do you get the sunflower you use?
I drive from our home in Wahpeton, N.D., to Huron, S.D., to get my seeds. It’s about a 200-mile drive one way, but it’s worth it because the seeds are clean and very good quality.
What makes your products stand out?
Our seeds are one of a kind. They are uniquely seasoned and smoked. You won’t find anything else like it.
What kinds of challenges have you faced along the way?
It’s been challenging getting our seeds in people’s mouths and getting our product on store shelves.
Approximately how much sunflower do you use each year?
Right now, we only do around 3,000 pounds a year but we are always looking to do more.
What are your customers’ perceptions of sunflower?
They love the smoky taste and quality of our seeds, chewing and cracking the seeds at games, events or for leisure.
Are there any new offerings, new products on the horizon?
At this time the answer is no, but we are always working on different flavors that go well with the smoky flavor
Are you doing advertising, PR, social media or grassroots efforts to promote your product? If yes, what?
You can find us on Facebook (JC’s Smoked Spitz/ old 81 Gourmet), Instagram (Old_81_Gourmet) and our website
www.old81gourmet.com
. We are one of more than 500 Pride of Dakota companies, which means we are deeply rooted in North Dakota.
What do you envision the future holding for your company?
We hope to grow bigger and helping get our seeds to people in all 50 states.
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