Miguel Rodrigues is from Faro and trained as an aeronautical engineer. He was repairing aircraft at the Tires airfield near Cascais when he left to start a food company, around 2016. It began on the kitchen counter at his parents' house. He started working with local producers in 2017, almond paste had become an Algarve breakfast staple by 2018, and in 2019, as the business reached the rest of the country, it took the name I'M NAT.
The first products were a crunchy Algarve almond butter and a version with fig and cinnamon. Today the range covers nut butters and pastes, bulk formats for professionals, roasted Algarve almonds with fleur de sal, and fruit and nut bars. The peanut butter is a single ingredient: peanuts.
The company is based at Bela Salema, in the Faro municipality, and remains small. The team is three: Miguel, Katherine on marketing and communication, and Zé on quality control. Production runs to order rather than continuously, at around 500 kilos of nut butter a day.
Beyond its own brand, I'M NAT manufactures for third parties, supplies hotels including Vila Vita Parc, and packs Algarve honeys. Its products reach the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany and the United States. The almond butter line was developed with support from the PDR2020 rural development programme.
https://iamnat.pt