Made in Michigan Gift Basket

We ship thousands of loaves every year to bread lovers nationwide.

Our artisan bread is baked down the road from us at Zingerman’s Bakehouse. We ship bread using two business day service – nothing slower. Our bread doesn’t have any preservatives, so we use expedited shipping to help ensure it arrives in great condition.

The bread will last on the counter for a few days in its Zingerman’s bread bag.

It does not need to be refrigerated – in fact, we recommend you avoid the fridge! Refrigeration will wreak havoc on the texture.

If you want to keep the bread for more than a few days your best bet is to freeze it.

Double bag the loaf—or part of it—in plastic and freeze for up to three months.

All of our full-flavored breads are completely baked all the way so reheating is not necessary. 

You can eat the bread right out of the bag (ripping pieces or cutting slices – no judgment here). If it seems a little hard or dry, that’s because the thick, crisp crust is meant to protect the bread. Just like the rind on a natural cheese, real bread has very real crust to protect the inside of the loaf from drying out.

We only suggest that the bread will give you the “just out of the oven” experience… if you reheat it in the oven.

For a warm crackly crust and a soft, chewy crumb, we suggest putting your loaf (whole, half, or part) in a 350 degree oven for approximately 15-20 minutes. If you’re pulling bread out of the freezer, let it defrost for about 30 minutes before throwing it in the oven.

American Spoon jarred its first preserves in Petoskey, Michigan in 1982. At the time, if you wanted high-quality preserves you had to look to Europe. “We wanted to reintroduce America to the amazing foods being made right here.” Said Noah Marshall-Rashid, son of Justin Rashid, founder of the company.

Like Zingerman’s (we started in 1982, too), American Spoon decided to stay relatively small. They had opportunities to become a large-scale producer distributing preserves to grocery store chains across the country. Instead they focused on flavor, not finance. “We think of ourselves as craft-makers,” Noah continued. “We don’t let efficiency get in the way of the taste. Slow cooking in small batches is still the way we do things because it makes the best tasting preserves.”

Climate counts

“Michigan’s distinct micro-climate yields the most flavorful fruit in America,” says Noah. “The short growing season and lots of sunlight leads to an incredible development of sugar and flavors in the fruit. That means our preserves taste different (better) than preserves made in other parts of the country.” Our changing seasons also mean that each fruit is only available for a few short weeks. Strawberries are around for about three weeks; peaches have maybe four weeks. Throughout the summer and fall, there’s a steady stream of new, luscious fruits to preserve.

Hedging farmer risk

Farmers don’t like to take risks. They wouldn’t choose to plant some varieties—like Early Glow Strawberries, which are small, fickle, but oh so delicious—unless American Spoon was there to buy the harvest. “We invest heavily in our relationships with growers and foragers that we enjoy and admire.” Noah continued. “Our success is tied to their success.”

Limited productions, like Wild Thimbleberry Preserves, are only possible because of dedicated foragers. The fruits take a tremendous amount of work to gather during very short harvests, but because American Spoon is there to buy the fruit, it’s worth it for the foragers. Without relationships like that, we might never get to taste some of these exquisite fruits in a jar.

Big enough, small enough

The size of American Spoon is an asset in the increasingly competitive artisan preserves market. “We can produce more jars than most artisan jam makers and that gives us some financial freedom,” Noah explained. “We can find something exceptional that we love, develop a unique recipe and only make it for a short period of time and not worry about its sales,” Noah continued. “Seasonal releases are not just okay, they make you a more interesting company. Customers come back for the next special release. You’re more than just a jam maker, you’re introducing people to something new all the time.” That’s a freedom most start-ups can’t afford.

The recipe for Cream-Nut peanut butter from Koeze (rhymes with Susie) in Grand Rapids, Michigan hasn’t changed since Albertus Koeze started making it in 1925. The equipment is old, too, from the middle of the last century. Even a lot of the staff have been there for decades. As Martin Andree, vice-president of Koeze puts it, “We’re not new. We’re not improved. We’re making the same product we’ve made all along.”

Why is Koeze’s peanut butter so good? Here are four reasons.

Koeze peanut butter starts with better peanuts.

There are four basic kinds of peanuts: runner, Spanish, Valencia, and Virginia. Ninety-nine percent of commercial peanut butter is made with low quality varieties of runner peanuts. They’re a high yielding crop, which means they’re inexpensive, the primary concern of most commercial peanut butter makers. However, they don’t taste all that great.

At Koeze, they’ve been using a high grade of Virginia peanuts since day one. They’re large, very flavorful, and typically rather expensive so they don’t end up in peanut butter too often. Instead most Virginia peanuts are roasted and sold for snacking (like our Virginia Diner Peanuts).

They add salt, but nothing else.

To mask the lackluster flavor of the poor quality peanut, most peanut butter makers add a bunch of sugar. They also usually whip in hydrogenated vegetable oils to keep the peanut oil from separating from the peanut butter. In addition to adding trans fats they can give the peanut butter a gummy texture.

At Koeze, the only ingredient other than peanuts is a pinch of sea salt. That means when you taste it you’re tasting the rich, slow roasted peanut flavor, not a bunch of sugar or binders.

Koeze takes time to smell the roasting nuts.

The industry standard these days is to use very hot ovens and conveyor belts to quickly roast enormous batches of peanuts. While faster production is less expensive, the savings come at the expense of flavor. That fast, hot conveyor belt roasting doesn’t give the peanuts much of a chance to develop color – or flavor. A lot of commercial peanut butters add molasses (more sugar!) to darken the color and mask the product’s shortcomings.

Koeze roasts their peanuts in an old coffee roaster from the 1940s. Inside the roaster, 300-pound batches of peanuts are turned slowly over a flame, roasting gently until they reach a rich golden-brown color. That’s caramelization—the same thing that makes a crusty end of bread or a seared steak so delicious. It imparts a sweet, roasty flavor to the nuts. It also makes the production space smell incredible, like fresh peanut butter cookies that have just come out of the oven.

They taste every single batch.

In spite of years of experience making peanut butter, the workers at Koeze still taste every single batch. They’re checking to make sure it has the rich, roasted peanut flavor and velvety—but still slightly chunky, with small bits of peanuts intentionally left in even in the creamy peanut butter—texture. They make peanut butter frequently enough that it’s usually not more than a few weeks old before it’s shipped out.

Since Koeze doesn’t have those oils added, it may separate over time. Store it in the fridge to reduce that separation anxiety, and as a bonus, seeing it every time you open the fridge will help you remember you’re never more than a few minutes away from the best PB&J you can imagine.