Spice It Up with Mill Run Spices

By ANDI DIEHN

Mill Run Spices was born on a boat. It seems like a strange place for a business that specializes in earthly elements to originate — until you start to listen to Doug Concialdi talk about food.

“Every weekend we’d bring beef, chicken or pork and then stop at the vegetable market in Boston,” he says. Concialdi and his wife, Jane Spooner, are avid boaters and used to keep their boat in Boston Harbor, even after they moved to Quechee, Vt., five years ago. Every weekend was a boating weekend. “Beef, chicken or pork. Finally we thought, ‘We’ve got to put some flavor into this!'”

That’s when they started blending their own spices to get a taste that enriched the flavor of their meals, instead of overpowering it. “All our dock mates would tell us, ‘This is really good, you should market this,'” Concialdi says.

But it wasn’t until last winter when Spooner was told she had to watch the amount of salt in her diet that they started to think seriously about their dock mates’ suggestion. “We realized that our blends were already salt free,” says Concialdi. “That’s when it all started to come together.”

Cajun, Sweet & Tangy, Asian, Snapping Turtle and Sunburn — whatever your taste buds crave, Mill Run Spices has a blend. When asked why his spice blends are better than the ones you might pick up at the grocery store, Concialdi says, “Just look at the labels. They all have salt in them, most of them have MSG. We start with natural spices and blend without any salt or MSG.”

But generally Concialdi hears about the flavor from his repeat customers. “It’s been a lot of trial and error,” he laughs. “There have been nights when we’ve been trying out a new blend, we sit down to dinner…and a few minutes later we’re going out for pizza.”

Their persistence, however, has paid off in the form of loyal customers at the Lebanon (N.H.) Farmers’ Market and at their online shop, www.millrunspices.com.

Concialdi admits he isn’t always interested in cooking. But he’s always interested in the result. “I like to eat,” he says. “I’m a steak and potatoes kind of guy.”