Pic’s Really Good Peanut Butter has been selected by Australian supermarket chain Woolworths for nationwide retail sale, adding to an impressive record of business successes for the Nelson-based company.
More than 900 Woolworths supermarkets around Australia will stock Pic’s crunchy and smooth 380g peanut butter jars from the end of February 2016. Countdown, Woolworths’ New Zealand divison, has been selling Pic’s since 2011.
“We’ve set up a second factory to ensure we meet demand,” says Pic Picot, owner of Pic’s Peanut Butter. “It has meant we've been able to increase our staff numbers from 17 to 25 full-timers in the last 12 months. We have had tremendous support from the Nelson community, and it has been neat to be able to provide a few more jobs.
“Australians love the fact that we Kiwis use their peanuts. It's not as if we are an Australian company loyally using local nuts. We could be buying our nuts from anywhere, but we use hi-oleic Australian nuts because they have an extraordinarily rich flavour, they never go rancid, and they have exceptional nutritional properties. Our Aussie customers really respond to that.”
The Woolworths agreement is the latest in a string of export successes for the company. Pic's sister, an Australian resident, started selling the product to Australians by mail order in 2011. This was followed by distribution through specialty stores and independent supermarkets before Pic’s was picked up by Coles in November 2014.
Pic’s is increasingly in demand in other countries too, with retail stockists in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, the UK and US. It is also shipped by mail order to customers all over the world.
Pic’s Peanut Butter earned Cuisine magazine's Artisan Food of the Year Award in 2010 and was a double finalist in the 2015 NZ Food Awards. The company has featured in the Deloitte's Fast 50 three years in a row, and Pic was one of ten finalists for EY's Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in 2014.
Pic's is New Zealand's most popular peanut butter with a value share of 34.6% of peanut butter sales in New Zealand supermarkets*.
*Source: IRI-Aztec, February 2016
