If you've been here before, welcome back. I hope you discover new stuff and still find what you're looking for.
If you're a first time visitor, you'll be thinking we're pretty flash. And you'd be right, but my goodness we've come a long way in a very short time.
In 2007 I bought a jar of peanut butter because, like you, I love the stuff. I took it home, made some toast, smothered it with the crunchy and took a big bite.
It was disgusting. Full of sugar.
I had known it would come to this. Years and years and years ago when I was an idle yachtie, I rowed over to an American mate’s boat for lunch. Rick plonked a jar of peanut butter on the cabin top and I read the label. "Health Style Peanut Butter" it said.
I'd always considered peanut butter to be pretty healthy anyway, so I read on. What made this stuff healthy was that it had reduced added sugar added to it. Back then sugared peanut butter was unheard of in NZ, but I figured that one day it would have to come.
And so it did. The first of it appeared in our favourite kiwi brands in about 2005, around the same time they closed the PB making NZ factories.
But back to me and my toast. There was a Freephone number on the jar and I rang it for a moan, to be told, "Most people prefer it with sugar, sir."
My Mum and Auntie had made a bit of peanut butter when I was little. They'd both bought a new Vitamix and peanut butter was one of the cool things you could make with them. Anyway, I bought a few kilos of peanuts, roasted them in the oven and squished them up with a bit of salt, blowing up my cheap modern blender in the process.
But the peanut butter was beautiful. A million times nicer than the stuff I'd got used to. I filled a few jars for friends, and one of my twelve-year-old son’s mates liked it so much he bought a jar with his pocket money.
I was fifty-five, going a bit blind (macular degeneration runs in the family) and had just had to close a little Laundromat that had been earning me a couple of hundred dollars a week. I figured if I could make 30 jars of peanut butter on Friday morning I could sell it at our farmers market on Friday afternoon and get my $200 back.
So that's what I did. I made a roaster out of a concrete mixer and bought a bench top grinder and a tonne of peanuts from Australia and got to work. There's a video HERE if you are interested.
Anyway, one thing led to another. In 2008 I sold 48 jars to our local supermarket and took to the road. Within a year you could buy Pic's in 50 outlets around the country. Then we were picked up by both of NZ's supermarket chains and suddenly Pic's was available pretty much anywhere in New Zealand.
In the process we moved from my garage to what had been the laundry room at the old Nelson Abattoir to a brand new factory in Nelson's Wakatu Estate. In 2014 we opened a new warehouse and office building down the road and a truck to tootle backwards and forwards in. Pic's Peanut Butter World opened it's giant Star Doors to the public on 23 February 2019.
I watched a huge truck being loaded with peanut butter for Australia a few days ago, and I really had to pinch myself. It has all come as such a surprise. It's all so much fun, and I get to meet so many lovely people.
Thank you so much for making contact, and be sure to keep in touch
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4 Comments
Like you I was raised on normal peanut butter. After suffering with food issues I gave up bread and hadn't eaten peanut butter in years. I was buying it for my sons, and started buying them the peanut butter without sugar -which never got eaten! Then I discovered good old gluten free bread and set to find a good peanut butter - like the ones we would buy in Wollies growing up where you could grind your own. Thats when I found Pics. We stock up when its on special cause we eat so much of it. Even my son still at home loves the stuff. Well done Pic, and thanks for sharing the recipe, I'll get around to it.... one day :)
Sincerely yours from across the ditch
Posted By: Elena 08/12/2017 2:24pm (3 years ago)
Hi, I've been using your peanut butter. Great stuff! Wouldn't it be awesome if you could sell one of those Pea nut butter mixers. Grandpa Witmer's Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Mixer was one I saw on You Tube. Great little invention! The one I found only fits a 3 inch lid and 16oz jar, and the jar I have measures 2.5 inches across, not sure on the jar size. It has to fit or the mixer bit would be either too large or too small. Food for thought anyway.
Posted By: Rebecca Tiller 26/06/2017 4:43pm (4 years ago)
I am looking for Sugar-free peanut butter. There didn't seem to be any available in Singapore supermarkets until I saw a brand named "Yogood" in one of the supermarket chains. Unfortunately it is no longer available. I saw your brand being advertised in Cold Storage's advertisement today. Will you be able to let m know which are the supermarket chains you distribute to in Singapore?
Posted By: Carolyn Chow 02/06/2017 4:35pm (4 years ago)
I was browsing through the supermarket aisle looking for healthy nonsugared,nonsalted peanut butter and saw Pic's peanut butter. Had never come across this brand before and after reading the ingredients, I decided to buy and try it.
Boy! was I pleasantly surprised !
It was crunchy and creamy an really really good!
Now I have it for breakfast every day!
Posted By: Ibtisan 26/11/2016 1:50pm (4 years ago)
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