Karen Hamilton embraces her nickname, “The Nut Lady.” In fact, she calls herself a “one-woman nut army.”

She owns the Beyond Nuts food trailer, which sells roasted almonds, pecans, and cashews.

“It’s a Bavarian-style roasted nut,” Hamilton said. “The machines that do this amazing roasting were made in Bavaria, Germany. So we import the machine, and we make all kinds of flavors.”

Her newest flavor is Lemon Drop. The classic is Cinnamon. There are also options like Maple and Espresso.

Hamilton started the business in 2016 after returning to Minnesota in 2015.

“It’s absolutely my accidental job. I never set out to be the nut lady,” she said. “We were living in Montana, and I was working as a cattle broker. So I was buying and selling livestock. And I was at a cattleman’s convention, and the booth next to me was roasting nuts.”

The man at that booth helped her start her own operation. Now, she owns two trailers and occasionally pops up with a tent too.

The nuts are roasted fresh in the trailer. You can’t miss the smell. Each batch of about 3 pounds of nuts (and 1.5 pounds of sugar) takes 12-15 minutes to roast.

“So we’re actually gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, but not sugar-free,” Hamilton joked.

She’ll be at the Embarrass Region Fair this weekend. You can find her on Facebook and Instagram.