Alamo Scoop: What’s in our Scoop?
The Alamo scoop is rich with pride and history.
Our humble beginnings start with the roots of the pecan trees that built San Saba.
Edmund E. Risien, an Englishman, moved to San Saba country in 1874 and began making improvements to the native pecan crop. Risen founded the West Texas Pecan Nursery, which is home to the Mother Pecan Tree that has produced many pecan varietals including: San Saba Improved, Texas Prolific, Onliwon, Squirrel Delight, No. 60 and Western Schely. The pecan era cultivated by Risien attracted a customer base that included Queen Victoria of England and the cereal giant, C.W. Post leading to San Saba County’s self-proclamation as the “Pecan Capitol of the World.”
The idea for Alamo Pecan came from the roots that raised us: pecans and our small-town hospitality. The pecan market was competitive, but we wanted to bring a new model - with a focus on corporate gifting - to the market. Knowing we wanted to build upon our offerings, branch out from just pecans (glorious as they are), we kickstarted our first Holiday season with a heavy reliance on mail-order gifting.
The Alamo brand started with six partners, a shoe string budget and cherished relationships with our small list of clients. Beautifully designed baskets, delicious pecan treats and the freshest raw products were our scoop. We procured mailing lists, stocked inventory, serviced orders and designed our brochures whilst simultaneously (and frantically) working other jobs, caring for our families and maintaining our positions on the City Council and coaching little league. Our goal was as simple as it was complicated: provide the ultimate quality, respect and value customers and employees, and continue diversifying the Alamo brand.
Every small business owner knows that growing pains are significant and we ran into plenty of hurdles. Instability of San Saba’s cash crop brought the modification of business plans, the crunching of numbers. Yet, throughout volatile market years, throughout every obstacle, our hard-working team managed to prevail - if only by the skin of our teeth. Our motto — ‘The Pecan Business is not for Wimps’ — was coined during those years. But we always came together and pieced together successes (even when a fire resulted in the largest UPS shipping order loss on record - more on that hiccup in a later blog).
In addition to mail order and corporate gifts, coffee earned its place in our offerings when we thought outside of the shell. Strategizing went something like this: the addition of pecans makes nearly anything magical— so why not add it to coffee? We began roasting coffee beans with pecans in 2003, launching the Alamo coffee bean line with Texas Pecan and Mocha Pecan. We continue exploring the roasting world, adding new flavors to our delicious coffee arsenal and have recently launched a coffee club.
This pecan wagon has taken us from operating on a kitchen table, packing on a small meat scale and storing products in the garage, to a store front in downtown San Saba. We now have a year-round supplier of pecans, recipes for fine roasted beans and a full service coffee bar and pecan shop supporting a year-round online, inshore operation that offer wholesale, corporate and fundraising opportunities. This evolution precipitated another slogan - ‘Pecans aren’t just for the holidays anymore.’ So drop by anytime…we’re here for you!