Founder Story

As the Owner & Founder of Howl at the Spoon, Melanie Jenkinson, I felt it past due to introduce myself. 

So, HELLO! to those who’ve not met me personally yet. I hope you enjoy this sliver of what brought me to start this brand during such a monumental time in our lives. Launching a brand in 2020 may have been what others call a crazy idea, but when you have an unending passion for something, you just make it work under any external circumstances. Shout out to all of the incredible founders here with the same motivation.

I started Howl at the Spoon with a mission to fill a space that I personally had been wishing existed for many years. As an avid camper, hiker and backpacker, I wanted an artisan portable sauce that could travel with me along my journeys into the backcountry as well as being a solution to cooking for one.

As a recipe developer and creator of Trail Forked, I have shared countless ideas for cooking in the outdoors (cookbook launching in mere weeks), but all the time wishing it could be as easy as having a portable flavor pack to mix with bulk grains & my preferred protein. Then I stopped looking for it on the shelves of outdoor retailers and grocery stores and got to work.

I completed a local course on making my dream into reality in the fall of 2019. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to use this platform to better the world around me. With this goal in mind, I immediately joined the 1% for the Planet movement to ensure a legacy of charitable donation. This core mission is very important to the business and grounds us to what really matters. The larger our brand grows, the more this core mission will benefit. 

I launched in the same month as Covid which dampened some in-person events, but since have proudly sold thousands of our wildly convenient artisan sauces in Al Pastor, Chimichurri and Lemon Dill.

So what’s in store for Howl at the Spoon in 2021? In a nutshell we are expanding the brand with targeted retailers and opening the flavor line to include even more unique blends.  

Sincerely and with gratitude,
Melanie J.