NZ Homegrown Peanut Butter

NORTHLAND PEANUTS

At Pic’s, we’re really excited about a project we’ve been working on up in Northland, which has the potential to make a huge change for good for the environment, New Zealand, and peanuts. Pic makes no secret of the fact that he’s always wanted to see New Zealand–grown peanuts in our peanut butter. And it’s fair to say that Pic has a habit of making his dreams become a reality.

This is where the CEO of Pic’s, Stuart Macintosh, comes in. Stuart had an old mate he’d studied with at Lincoln University by the name of Declan Graham, who happened to be Plant & Food Research’s science business manager. One day, they got to talking about whether it would be possible to grow peanuts in New Zealand. That conversation grew legs and soon turned into a full-scale project to find out.

You can’t just bring any old plants into New Zealand and start growing them, so the help of the Sustainable Food and Futures team at the Ministry of Primary Industries was enlisted, too.

Together, the team worked out that the best place to do trials is Northland, as it has the warm climate that peanuts need to grow. Pic readily admits that Northland is his second favourite place — after Nelson — in New Zealand. His love of the place came as a result of the time he spent there during his Big Toaster Tour in 2015.

The welcome he received in Dargaville made such an impression that he’s never forgotten it: ‘We were treated like long-lost whānau. We got a lot of attention at local tourist attraction the Kumara Box, we sold every last jar at the Friday market and we were presented with two 50-year-old cans of toheroa soup. I can think of nothing finer than to help the Northland community establish a new industry.’

With the assistance of our international supply, agents Cannon Garth Hi Oleic peanut seed was initially sourced from Zambia, and more recently larger amounts from the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

Plant & Food Research then undertook an in-depth analysis of the local soils and identified three areas they believed would be prime sites for growing peanuts, each with their own different soil types.

Late in October 2020, those pioneering seed peanuts were planted on a kūmara farm in Ruawai, on iwi land near Kai Iwi Lakes, and on a dairy farm out on the Pouto Peninsula. The three different locations gave us a chance to work out how the peanuts would grow in different environments.

The combined area planted across all three locations was a tiny 0.1 hectare. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but a single hectare can produce up to seven tonnes of peanuts. The timing for the planting was critical, as peanuts need the soil temperature to be over 18 degrees for the whole four- to five-month growing cycle.

If they do take off, peanuts will make a great addition to Northland’s agricultural landscape — like other legumes, they’re renowned for restoring the soil and fixing nitrogen, so could be used in rotation with more traditional crops.

They also have the added benefit of requiring less water than many other crops. As Pic says, ‘It has always felt a little weird to be making an iconic New Zealand product with imported ingredients. These trials have the potential to make a very real difference to our carbon footprint and redirect the millions of dollars we spend on imported nuts to Northland.’

After all the hard work of finding the best land, sourcing seed stock, and actually growing the peanuts, the trial produced 20 kilograms of peanuts. While this might not seem like a lot, the whole process has proved that peanuts can be grown here and thus has unlocked the potential for a whole new industry, which could benefit not only Northland but also the country, the climate, and the environment — so it’s wins all around.

After the success of the 2020 harvest, and following a one-year feasibility study in 2021, we’ve scaled up to a two-year project. This is the first year of the $1 million project funded by Picot Productions, Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund and Northland Inc.

If the trial proves successful it would have significant positive impacts for the region — generating jobs both on- and off-farm, pumping funds into the local economy and supporting investment opportunities.

As of 2021, the trial is currently operational in five locations — two farms in Te Kōpuru, two on Māori land near Kai Iwi Lakes and Awanui, and one farm near Kaingaroa. The coming season will see the number of sites expand to seven across Northland.

A sample harvest during the feasibility study in 2021 saw promising results and this year’s crops have provided further information on the cultivars most suited for potential commercial viability in the Northland climate. Final results are due to be delivered in the coming months including an all-important taste test.

Pic is quietly confident that it’s a step in the right direction towards fully homegrown peanut butter in the future. We are one of the few producers in New Zealand that freshly roasts our own peanuts, so to be able to source them from our own backyard would be the cherry on top.

Not to mention the huge positive impact it would have in reducing our carbon footprint. If we can pull this off and produce enough peanuts from Kiwi soil it’d make our peanut butter just that much peanut-better. Once harvest is complete the nuts will be tested for taste and quality. Those that make the grade will be roasted and crushed at Peanut Butter World in sunny Nelson before they’re made into a very limited run of Pic’s Peanut Butter. When run at scale the group behind the trial estimates crops could produce enough nuts for 4,500 jars of peanut butter per hectare, but the aim would be to double this to around 10,000 over time.

While Northland is more well-known as kumara country than peanut province at the minute, we’re hopeful that won’t be the case forever, ultimately the proof will be in the peanuts.