By Kayla Anderson Special to the NNBW
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
The Nevada Brining Company, the state’s first craft pickle company that launched in 2014, is currently expanding its line of brined products.
It all began when the company’s founder Matt Soter was living in Las Vegas and had his gallbladder removed. Even though he was in his early 30s, it started a domino effect of health problems and he developed gout. His doctor put him on the heavy medication allopurinol and told him that he had to completely alter his lifestyle and diet to treat it.
It was hard news to take for Soter, who then went to a holistic healer to see if there were any other alternative treatments he could use in place of the allopurinol. The holistic healer prescribed him pickle juice, and within 90 days of taking it he went off the heavy gout medication completely.
“I saw the first of many health benefits from it. And I always liked pickles; I’m from Virginia in farm country,” Soter said.
Along with pickle juice personally improving the quality of his life, Soter believed that he could take his experience in the marketing, food, and health industries to build a new brining company.
“I also did corporate branding, website development, and graphic design for 22 years while moonlighting working in restaurants and this company was a monster of all of those things,” he adds.
Soter also realized that Nevada didn’t have a craft pickling company andcompany, and saw an opportunity to bring that to the Silver State. He started brining pickles in a barbecue restaurant on Las Vegas Boulevard and then migrated up to Reno in 2017.
“This was more of a seasonal area where we could work more closely with our purveyors, and we wanted to start a family,” Soter says of him and his wife Stacee.
The Soters relocated to Northern Nevada and rented space at One World Kitchen in Sparks for a year or so. They soon outgrew it and worked out of the Mellow Fellow pub in downtown Reno. However, they continued to expand and in October 2020, Nevada Brining moved again into their own facility on Glendale Avenue in Sparks.
Soter admits that he has close to 200 recipes for brined vegetables, many of them one-offs that he’s created for local chefs and restaurants. Its main, most popular products include the: Deli Style Pickle; Boozy Pickle (basically a pickleback shot in a jar…these bourbon-brined pickles are brined with Fresnofresno peppers to give it a kick); Icky Pickle (a collaboration with Great Basin Brewing Co. that consists of pickles brined in its Icky IPA with locally-sourced juniper berries); Stagecoach Carrot (sweet pickled carrots with fresh sliced ginger); Comstock Cauliflower (cauliflower in a sweet curry and peppercorn brine); and the Great Basin Beets.
In early April, Nevada Brining Company introduced its new line of pickled goodness called the Sweet N’ Heat club. Its first two products in the club include the Ponderosa Pepper Relish-diced jalapenos in a bread and butterbread-and-butter brine and the Valley of the Fire Pickle consisting of ripple cut pickle chips in a sweet bread and butter brine with hot sauce.
When asked what the most interesting product he’s ever made, Matt replies that it’s the pickled pumpkin rinds that it sourced from a farm in Reno, brined and sold to Liberty Food & Wine Exchange where it was served in one of its specialty salads
Personally, though, Matt’s favorite pickled item to eat are brined hardboiled eggs.
“I like pickled tyetie-dyed eggs but I grew up on a farm in Virginia eating pickled catfish, herring roe, pickled pigs feet, all kinds of weird stuff,” he chuckles.
And now Nevada Brining Co. just keeps getting bigger. In August, Nevada Brining Company’s pickled products went live in 50 Whole Foods locations across Northern Nevada, Northern California, and parts of Idaho. This past March, Nevada Brining Company’s products also began being offered in all Sprouts locations in Nevada.
“When we first startedstarted, we worked with 200 pounds of cucumbers a week and we took it to 2,000 pounds per week. That’s how we measure our growth – we keep it in pickle talk,” he says.
Matt also credits his wife Stacee for allowing Nevada Brining Company to be so successful.
“If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t exist. She’s a 51 percent shareholder in the company; she’s allowed us to grow in a grassroots, organic way and, not get too big too fast, and raise our family, too. If she wasn’t therethere, then we wouldn’t exist.
Stacee does the day-to-day paperwork, public relations, accounting and finances. “She’s the behind-the-scenes person; she’s the pickle mom,” he says with a smile.
Matt admits that he would love for his kids to take over Nevada Brining Company someday, but since he himself left a family business in Virginia, he wouldn’t put that on them.
“This is very much a family business. I fantasize about my kids taking it over; they’re always in the kitchen and they love pickles,” he adds.
For information about the Nevada Brining Company, visit https://nevadabrining.com/.
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