What's Happening at Pic's Peanut Butter World

PIC'smas at Pic's Peanut Butter world

Christmas has arrived at Pic's, or as well call it, Pic'smas.
Come in and visit, we've got so much going on!

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Pic'smas with our PBMs

School Spring School Holidays 2022

The spring school holidays, were a great success yet again, with lots of families from around Aotearoa as well as the rest of the world. 

On offer at PBW we had:

• Spectacular pirate-themed treasure hunt whereby kids had to follow the clues to spell out the word ‘Hi-Oleic’. Once they finished they received their prize booty of a PB slug contained in a tumbler. We had a ‘real’ pirate chest that the kids got their first clue from. A total of 377 tumblers and slugs were handed out from the completion of the treasure hunt. 
• Our new voting booths arrived in time for the start of the school holidays: visitors are able to choose between Crunchy, Smooth, and Smunchy. So far Crunchy is the clear winner!
• Pirate and summer style colouring in for our wall with a table in the kids corner (so as not to use up valuable cafe space)
• Guess how many peanuts were in the 1kg jar - the correct answer was 1128 and you were the closest guess with 1114, to a 9-year-old boy called Liam from Auckland. He won a 2.3kg pail of smooth PB.
• We even had a staff colouring in competition as part of Mental Health Month, Rachel chose the best of each design, as well as a people’s choice for the 3rd prize. Each winner had their picture framed and won a prize.

- Rosey Nov 2022

Some of our winners from the colouring competition

WORLD CAR FREE DAY AT PIC's PB WORLD

23rd September 2022

When the team told me that Thursday the 23rd was World Car Free Day and that they thought it would be a good idea to offer our Peanut Butter Makers all a free coffee if they carpooled or came to work on a bike or bus, I got very excited. 

Keen to bring the message to the wider community, I hatched a wicked plan to close all our carparks for the day. I barged into the guiding teams’ Friday meeting and announced my intention.

My idea was not greeted with an abundance of glee. The team was justifiably concerned that there was not enough time to get ready, permits might be required, staff would have to be rostered, and we might be breaking the law or risking adverse publicity.

I contacted our signwriters and ordered a couple of signs about World Car Free Day and crossed my fingers for a fine day the following Thursday. The week started off pretty miserable… Overcast and cold with intermittent rain.  The tours team had contacted everyone booked for the Thursday tour and let them know we would not be providing parking.

I had hoped that we would be able to use the closed car park for rollerblading, tennis matches, slow bicycle races and a few fun things that are best done on a lovely smooth pavement, but as there wasn’t time to tell the community about it and as I was the only Picster free to spend the day outside turning the carpark into a playground, we will have to wait for next year.

I had shared my plans with Matt Lawry, a Nelson city counselor. Matt, an ex-journalist, was keen to get the story into our local newspapers, but on Wednesday afternoon I was beginning to feel very unsure about the whole thing. 

I had a sleepless night, but the next day dawned warm and sunny, so I took an early bus to work and with the assistance of a PBM and a forklift, closed off the entrance and exit to our car parks with the planters from around the lunchroom.

Taping one of the World Car Free Day signs to a cone in the driveway. I settled myself into a plastic chair in the shade of the big peanut butter jar and waited…

Our visitors booked for the first tour of the day all arrived on foot. One or two cars approached the entrance, slowed, but then saw the barrier and the sign and continued on their way. I’m imagining most of them found a park down the road but one or two might have driven off in a huff, I don’t know.

There were maybe four or five motorists who pulled in and stopped at the barrier, looking perplexed, but after I approached them and told them about our event, most appeared only too happy to support it and find somewhere else to dump their motorcar. There was one driver who I think looked shocked and drove off at high speed in, I assume, disgust at our apparent lack of hospitality. 

All in all, though, by the end of the day, everyone at Pic’s Peanut Butter World, felt that the day had been rather special, and I am sure that it is something we can all look forward to being part of next year.

And hey, congratulations to everybody who made an effort and carpooled or came to work on their bicycle!

- Pic, the Chief Peanut Butter Maker

Peanut butter lovers, come into Peanut Butter World and cast your vote! 

We're always keen to hear your thoughts on all things nuts, so we've set up a voting system in Peanut Butter World. Using our fabulous star lids of course.

The current topic is 'what's your pic?'

Pop into the shop at PB World and vote for your FAVOURITE peanut butter squish: be it Crunchy, Smunchy (the new kid on the block), or Smooth?

Fun fact: Out of every 10 jars we sell here in NZ, seven of them are crunchy! That's right, kiwis can't resist a really good crunchy topping

Want to join our fab team of Peanut Butter Makers?

Pic made his first peanut butter in a concrete mixer in his garage in 2007, now Pic’s is New Zealand’s best-selling peanut butter. Fresh roasted, crushed, and packed in Sunny Nelson Tasman at Peanut Butter World. We are a team of proud, passionate, and knowledgeable food producers and there are currently two exciting opportunities to join our team!

Check out our listings on Seek for all the details on our roles as a Brand Manager and Production Engineer

It's WORLD CAR FREE DAY tomorrow! - September 2022

Here at Pic's we're big fans of the planet - you could say it's our entire world! So when something like World Car Free Day rolls around, we 'roll out the sandbags' (quite literally - we're blocking off the car park!).

We have 55 staff here at Pic’s and for World Car Free Day, we’re all trying our best to find alternative ways to get to Peanut Butter World

Be it via the cycleway on our pedal or e-bike, some have roller skates and others have scooters, will be taking the local bus, or doing a call out to see who lives in our neighbourhood so we can carpool together.

On the 22nd September we're all making an effort to reduce carbon for the day and we hope you join us!

Chia Sisters field trip - 13th September 2022

With a B Corp certification now proudly under our belts, we're now looking for ways we can do this even better! So what better way to do some research than to visit the fabulous team at Chia Sisters? Chia Sisters were named by B Corp in the top five percent of companies in the world for the environment. It's a massive achievement and we are so impressed. 

The Pic's team gathered a team of individuals from across the company for a field trip to meet the Chia Sisters team, here's what Liz had to say about our visit:

Visiting the Chia sisters on Tuesday was a great opportunity to learn from a local business who are renowned leaders in putting sustainability at the forefront of all their decisions. They were able to explain why they decided to pursue BCORP certification and the relevance of certification to Pics and our consumers. The tour of their plant was thought-provoking in terms of how we can improve our processes to be kinder to the planet and how we can increase our recycling/upcycling on site. - Liz, Production Leader

We were more than inspired and have some fab ideas of what we can do next at Pic's - so watch this space! 

Northland peanut trials update - September 2022

• How many jars were made at Pic's from the trial?

50x 195g jars

• Is planting set for the next trial and when will that commence?

Planting for this year’s season is well underway, with the project increasing from 5 to 8 sites across Te Tai Tokerau increasing land area from 1ha to 4.5ha. All sites have been secured with our landowner partners.

Planting is scheduled for mid-late October and is weather dependant.

• Any other key updates from the report?

The season showed NZ-grown peanuts are on par with what is produced and imported from overseas. Nutritional values and oil content in some areas were above international benchmarks. In some cases even when not higher are pretty much comparable and of dietary significance. Great news for making awesome New Zealand Peanut Butter.

The peanut trial continues to generate conversation and interest from a variety of parties across the country who are following the project with keen interest.

- Greg, Northland Inc