Pic’s Peanut Butter crunches the competition with 41% market share
Tuesday, 20 January 2026
Pic’s Peanut Butter is gearing up for another chunky year.
The Nelson-based spread manufacturer saw sales reach $40 million and revenue grow by 20% in the 2025 financial year, and it anticipates another 20% increase in sales in the current year.
Most of its sales come through supermarkets in New Zealand, and about 40% mostly through export across Australia and China.
The 19-year-old business processes 3.5 million kgs of peanuts a year, sells 10 million jars annually, and now holds 41% of the domestic peanut butter market.
Interestingly, Pic’s crunchy peanut butter is its biggest seller in New Zealand, while elsewhere in the world it is the smooth spread.
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Chief executive Aimee McCammon said the company had steadily grown year-on-year for the past three years, post-Covid hangover.
“Even through these tough economic years, I think people reach for things that they find comforting and they know, and are good quality food. Even though the economy's been tough, we still had a really good year, and so I'd like to see more of that this year,” McCammon told The Post.
“We've got a few interesting and surprising new products coming out. We always do that because people love it, but our prime focus is always just making the best quality peanut butter that we can.”
Pic’s sold a 51.3% stake to Melbourne-based Scalzo Foods, a family-owned food and ingredient supply business, in August last year. Scalzo sources Pic’s peanuts, which mostly come from Brazil and Argentina.
But McCammon and her stepfather and Pic’s founder Pic Picot dream of the day the company can source its peanuts in New Zealand.
Picot holds a 42.4% stake in the company and works as a brand ambassador, and McCammon holds a 6.3% stake.
Peanut investment
For the past six years the company has invested in peanut trials in Northland - part of wider plans to establish and develop commercial peanut growing in the region - in conjunction with a number of agencies including MBIE and Plant & Food.
McCammon said the country was still “a while away” from commercially grown stock.
She said the company had been working to identify the correct cultivar, noting that many types of peanut seeds were being trialled across Northland to see which performed best.
They were now in discussions with international seed breeders, including some in Texas, to find varieties most suited to Northland conditions. The work was progressing well, she said, but it would still be some time before any crops were produced in commercial quantities.
With the right support and investment, New Zealand could have a peanut industry within the next five to 10 years.
“We would love to source peanuts from here. It derisks supply chain for one thing, but to be able to help create an industry out of somewhere like Northland or other regional areas, that would definitely be a goal.
“You have to build quite an infrastructure in industry, so it needs all the peanut farmers, and then it needs peanut processing in between. A big infrastructure for processing.”
McCammon said the changing global climate actually favoured establishing an industry in New Zealand. “As the conditions change and get warmer in Northland, it is more favourable for the peanuts.
She said a large number of people had been involved in the project, including local farmers, iwi, and agencies such as MBIE and Plant & Food.
”If you wanted to accelerate it, and there was interest in investment, we could probably get it there in five years.”
Pic’s has contributed financially to the trials, and committed to buying any high-grade stock that comes from it.
“We spend close to $10m a year on peanuts, and imagine if we could spend that in New Zealand rather than offshore.”
Market leader
Australian and New Zealand’s nut butter market was worth around US$126.2m ($220m) in 2023, according to latest readily available data.
Pic’s is the market leader in domestic peanut butter sales, the country’s most bought brand followed by supermarket house brands, combined, Fix & Fogg, Bega and then Forty Thieves.
It roasts 16 tonnes of peanuts daily, producing 38,000 jars of peanut butter a day.
“We went from being this tin brand when Sanitarium was number one, and now we're the dominant player. We're a 41% share of the market, and we outsell the nearest competitor by two to one, and there's no Sanitarium,” said McCammon, who has been chief executive for the past three years.
“We don't feel like we're that big … We still act like a start-up; the way we make our decisions and just doing things that we think are fun and we like.”
McCammon is based in Wellington and travels to Nelson weekly for a few days on the ground.
Pic’s began in 2008 and has grown to become a Kiwi cultural icon. The company offers tours of its factory - Pic’s Peanut Butter World - and is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Nelson, which sees approximately 10,000 visitors through each year.
Up until September last year those tours were free, but it now charges visitors $25 per tour, holding three to five tours a day.
Pic’s employs 50 staff in Nelson, and a handful in Auckland and Australia.