Sound Bites adds a new twist to some old recipes

Entrepreneurs dish up ingredients from Washington farms

Susan Schell

of the Gateway

A cooler of open samples of different flavors of hummus and pesto sauce lures tasters under a tent at the Saturday Gig Harbor Farmer’s Market. Katie Scrivner dishes out the creamy spreads and sauces on tiny crackers.

Working for the Sound Bites Sauce & Spread Company is Scrivner’s dream job. When she’s not enjoying the fresh open air at the market, she’s whipping up tasty treats in the kitchen.

“It’s cool ’cause I know a lot about the product, because I make it,” she said. “I know about how local the ingredients are and the process we use to make the hummus. We do everything the old-fashioned way, with the smallest details in mind.”

Sound Bites places a high priority on producing products that are grown, manufactured and sold locally. Its line of hummus, chimichurri and crackers uses ingredients like wine grape seed oil, garbanzo beans, white beans and red beans, camelina seeds, red onions and local herbs and spices.

Rich Hines and Stephen McConkey are the entrepreneurs behind the company, starting out at the farmers’ market in Puyallup last summer.

“We’re in 21 farmers’ markets every week around the Puget Sound, and 18 retail stores,” Hines said.

Tacoma Boys in Tacoma and Harbor Greens in Gig Harbor also sell their products.

Hines and McConkey wanted to put a unique spin on their goods by using primarily Northwest ingredients, most notably grape seed oil in place of olive oil, because grapes are grown locally.

“We substitute local ingredients for global recipes,” McConkey said. “It’s a bonus that grape seed oil is so healthy — it’s loaded with vitamin E and has half the fat of olive oil.

“These oils have distinctive flavors and health properties.”

“People are intrigued by the substitution of the ingredients,” McConkey said. “The grape seeds are a sustainable resource out of what would normally be a waste product.”

Some of the products’ names, like Chardonnay White Bean Hummus, Merlot Red Bean Hummus and Riesling Garbanzo Hummus, are named after the grapes, not because they contain wine.

“People like the products, and that’s what’s important,” Scrivner said. “We have customers that come to the market week after week.”

Sound Bites at the Farmers Market

Sound Bites Sauce & Spread Company sells its unique variety of hummus, chimichurri and crackers each Saturday at the Gig Harbor Farmers Market, 6808 Kimball Drive NW in Gig Harbor.

For more information, call 206-682-6979, e-mail sarahb@richmondpr.com or visit www.EatSoundBites.com.