Pata Pīnati: Pic’s Peanut Butter and Te Reo Māori

Pata pīnati, peanut butter and a little more reo at the table

There are worse places to learn a new bit of te reo Māori than over breakfast.

Our peanut butter jars spend a fair bit of time sitting on kitchen benches, breakfast tables and pantry shelves around Aotearoa. And because we’ve never thought a label should just tell you what’s inside the jar, in 2018 we put te reo Māori on one.

That jar was Pata Pīnati Kakukaku, our te reo Māori edition of Pic’s Crunchy Peanut Butter.

What began with Pic wanting to cause, in his words, “a bit of trouble” has turned into something rather more meaningful.

So, what is Pata Pīnati Kakukaku?

Pata pīnati is peanut butter, and Pata Pīnati Kakukaku is the name on our te reo Māori edition of Pic’s Crunchy Peanut Butter.

Same freshly roasted peanuts. Same crunchy peanut butter. A rather different label.

The first Pata Pīnati jar made its debut in 2018. Pic thought putting te reo Māori front and centre on something as ordinary as a jar of peanut butter might get people talking.

It did.

And people kept asking for it back.

By 2025, Pata Pīnati Kakukaku had made its way into supermarkets around the country during September, as well as being available through Pic’s online. Seven years after the first jar, it was clear this little label had found a life of its own.

It started with a bit of mischief

There’s a fairly Pic’sish beginning to all of this.

Pic has never been especially interested in doing something just because that’s how it has always been done. That attitude is, after all, how he ended up roasting peanuts in a converted concrete mixer in a Nelson garage back in 2007.

The te reo label came from much the same place.

Pic later admitted that he originally did it “largely just to cause a bit of trouble”. But something unexpected happened after the jars appeared.

The response was overwhelmingly warm.

More importantly, the label started conversations inside Pic’s as well as outside it. What had begun on a peanut butter jar became a nudge to use and understand more te reo Māori across the business.

That feels like a much better outcome than simply printing a special label once a year and putting it back in the cupboard when September is over.

Why put te reo Māori on a peanut butter jar?

Because language belongs in ordinary life.

Not only in classrooms, speeches or official documents. It belongs at work, in shops, around the dinner table and, we reckon, somewhere between the toast and the coffee in the morning.

A peanut butter jar isn’t going to revitalise a language. We’re under no illusions about that.

But an everyday object can make a word more familiar. It can prompt someone to ask what something means. It can make trying a little reo feel less intimidating.

And if a jar that gets picked up every morning can help put pata pīnati into a few more Kiwi vocabularies, that seems like a good use of a label.

From the label to everyday kōrero

For the 2026 edition, we wanted to go a little further than changing the words on the front of the jar.

Working with Te Ataarangi ki Te Tauihu o Te Waka-a-Māui, we developed peanut butter-related phrases and everyday te reo Māori that people could actually have a go at using.

Because the best phrase is usually the one you’ll remember when you need it.

A couple for the breakfast table

He pata pīnati kakukaku māu?
Do you want some crunchy peanut butter?

Homai koa te pata pīnati kakukaku.
Pass the crunchy peanut butter, please.

You don’t need to deliver a speech. Start with the peanut butter.

That’s quite enough pressure before breakfast.

A jar can be a little publication

Pic’s labels have always been slightly overqualified for the job of being labels.

Over the years we’ve filled them with stories, poems, odd facts, things Pic has been thinking about and assorted bits of useful and not-so-useful information.

We call it our “publication on a pack” philosophy.

The thinking is simple: the jar is already sitting in your house. You’re going to pick it up anyway. We may as well give you something interesting to read while you’re there.

Pata Pīnati fits rather neatly into that tradition.

Instead of treating te reo Māori as decoration, the jar gives it some of the most valuable real estate we have.

Right there on the breakfast table.

Pata pīnati made its way into the kitchen too

In 2025, we teamed up with author, presenter and kai creator Naomi Toilalo to take Pata Pīnati beyond the label and into some proper baking.

Naomi created two recipes for us:

Keke Papatahi Wītipīki me te Pata Pīnati
Weetbix and Peanut Butter Slice

Te Keke Kakukaku
Crunch Slice

It was a lovely way of joining two things we care about: making te reo Māori feel at home in everyday life and finding yet another excuse to put peanut butter into baking.

The recipes also gave whānau something practical to do with the reo. Read it, make it, eat it.

Preferably all three.

What we’ve learnt from Pata Pīnati

Perhaps the biggest lesson has been that you don’t need to wait until you know everything before you start.

Pic’s is not a Māori organisation, and we’re certainly not language experts.

So we work with people who are.

We ask questions. We get things checked. We listen when we get something wrong. And we keep trying to make te reo Māori a more normal part of how we communicate rather than something we wheel out for one week every September.

That journey has taken the conversation well beyond our labels.

In 2026, Pic joined businesses and organisations from around Aotearoa at Uhi Tai: Te Reo Māori in Business, hosted by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, to talk about what Pic’s had learnt from bringing te reo into the brand and the business.

Pic summed up the change pretty simply: what started with the Pata Pīnati labels gave the company a kick-start to bring more of our native language into everyday life at Pic’s.

Not bad for a jar of crunchy peanut butter.

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2026

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori runs from 14 to 20 September 2026, with this year’s kaupapa encouraging people to make te reo Māori visible and useful in everyday places: in our towns, homes, workplaces and communities.

That idea feels pretty familiar to us.

On Thursday 17 September, Pic Picot and Aimee McCammon will also join Te Taura Whiri’s Te Wiki webinar series for Te Reo Māori in Business, sharing some of what Pic’s has learnt since that first Pata Pīnati jar appeared in 2018.

The story started with a label.

It turns out the more interesting bit was what happened afterwards.

Where can I get Pata Pīnati Kakukaku?

The current Pata Pīnati Kakukaku Te Reo Māori edition is available from our Whakatū Nelson store and through the Pic’s online shop.

If one ends up on your breakfast table, try not to let it sit there quietly.

Give the reo on it a go.