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Tena Baehm waited outside for the Planters’ NUTmobile to arrive at her retirement home in Ooltewah, Tennessee last summer. Ally “Almond Ally” Toolan, a Syracuse University alumna, remembered that Baehm lit up with excitement when she saw the Wisconsin license plate on the NUTmobile.

“Oh my gosh, I’m from Minnesota, we’re neighbors,” Toolan recalled Baehm saying to her.

Toolan told Baehm to wait for a second while she grabbed her fellow “Peanutter,” Owen “PistachOwen” Luterbach, another Minnesota native. Luterbach and Baehm spoke outside for over an hour about food and the local dialect, Baehm said.

For Toolan, meeting people like Baehm is one of her favorite parts of her job. The three Planters’ NUTmobiles normally journey around the United States to attend large events like state fairs and festivals to connect with customers. In February 2020, a NUTMobile came to SU for Peanutter recruitment events.

Now, a year later, the Peanutters are back in Syracuse to “spread smiles in the salty streets,” said Grace “Go Nuts Grace” Noice, one of Toolan’s coworkers. The crew will also visit virtual classes at SU and give an introduction to the job. The Peanutters are holding a virtual information session Thursday at 5 p.m., too, which can be found on Handshake.

The “Peanutters” will visit virtual classes Thursday and are also holding a virtual information session that evening at 5 p.m., which can be found on Handshake. Abby Presson | Asst. Copy Editor

This year, the job has required more planning from the Peanutters than years before due to the pandemic, Toolan said. There are fewer large events for the crew to attend, so Peanutters are encouraged to connect with locals in towns they pass through and with organizations on their own to schedule smaller, more personal events.

Danny Higgins, an alumnus of SU, drove around the country as a Peanutter from June 2019 to March 2020. About eleven months ago, after he and his team traveled to SU, they arrived in Hilton Head, South Carolina. It turned out to be their final stop.

“I remember being in Hilton Head and the weeks leading up we had heard of some (COVID-19) cases around the world,” Higgins said. “But it didn’t really seem real until Hilton Head, when our first event had to be canceled.”

Initially, Higgins assumed only a week’s worth of events would be canceled. He thought the break aligned perfectly for the group to relax in a beach town with a crew that drove a Wienermobile, the Oscar Mayer version of the vehicle, he said.

Instead, the cases in the U.S. rose, and the Kraft Heinz Company informed the teams that they would quarantine in their current cities and then drive back home. Before Higgins said farewell to the 26-foot-long peanut mobile and returned to Massachusetts, he bought sanitary supplies and cleaned “Baby Nut,” he said.

Now back on campus this week, the NUTmobile parked in front of Eggers Hall on Tuesday afternoon, where students passing by craned their necks at the 415-peanut-long vehicle. Toolan took “shellfies” with Otto and brought her two coworkers — Noice and Tyler “Ty The Nut Drivin’ Guy” Towne — to Varsity Pizza, Syracuse’s “rite of passage,” Toolan said.

Toolan first learned about the Planters’ NUTmobile job through texts from another Peanutter, Katie Dills, who also graduated from SU with Higgins.

“I sat down and talked to both of them and (they) walked through like the good, the bad, and the ugly of the job,” Toolan said. “I was like, alright, this is the only job I want. It actually ended up being the only job I applied to.”

The NUTmobile that this team of “Peanutters” drives is from 2018, the seats include the Planters logo embroidered on them and the shell of the vehicle is made of fiberglass. Abby Presson | Asst. Copy Editor

Toolan received a call from Kraft Heinz while she was on a Zoom call with her advertising capstone group last spring. When she picked up, Toolan initially thought she was rejected. But, when the Kraft Heinz representative announced that they were offering the job, she accepted it on the spot.

A month after she officially started traveling with the NUTmobile, Toolan received a Facebook message from Tracey Rae Pollard in Lexington, Kentucky, who asked about joining a drive-by parade for a friend named Kenny who was terminally ill with cancer. The NUTmobile arrived toward the end of the parade, and Toolan said she and the crew were blown away by the 50 or so vehicles in front of them.

When they reached Kenny, the Peanutters gifted him a “swag bag” and Planters’ mixed nuts, his favorite snack. Toolan remembered that Kenny smiled so much when he saw the NUTmobile, and Rae Pollard told Toolan afterward by text that they had made a Planters’ fan out of him for life.

“That was really incredible,” Toolan said. “A lot of what we do is just like finding opportunities and saying yes where we can.”

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Past NUTmobile coverage:

• Syracuse graduate returns to campus, on a NUTmobile
• Catch a ride to class in the Planters NUTmobile
• Video: The Planters NUTmobile arrived at SU this week

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In Syracuse, like everywhere they travel in the NUTmobile, the Peanutters are dressed in Planters apparel. The team is currently working on getting Planters masks to complete their outfit, Toolan said.

The uniform and NUTmobile comes with a lot of attention. Anywhere the Peanutters travel — to a supermarket, a hotel or a drive-in movie theater — they are on duty. So, it’s important to be able to turn on the “Disney magic” at all times, Toolan said.

“When you are going down the road and people honk and wave at you or their mouth just hits the floor when they see the nut,” Noice said. “Just seeing their joy gives me joy.”

Assistant culture editor Christopher Scarglato contributed reporting to this story.

Published on February 10, 2021 at 10:32 pm

Contact Louis: louis@dailyorange.com | @JBL__98