Vito Pilieci

The Ottawa Citizen

CREDIT: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen Howard Goldenberg threw everything but the kitchen sink into his Nut 'N Budder peanut butter, trying to come up with a mix that wasn't oily or clumpy. He's finally succeeded and grocery chain Sobeys seems to agree, coming through with a hefty first order.

Howard Goldenberg has spent two years, and more than $120,000 of his own cash, crushing nuts in a blender. Now the Ottawa entrepreneur's efforts are about to pay off.

In 2004, the 41-year-old Ottawa high-tech employee made it his personal mission to find a new mix of all-natural peanut butter that wasn't oily, clumpy or sticky.

The job wasn't easy.

"Anybody can make peanut butter. You take peanuts and stick em in a blender," he said. "But I wanted to do something different."

After long hours grating, mixing, chopping and pouring everything from honey and flax seed to cinnamon and almonds into a container to perfect his spread, Mr. Goldenberg's Nut 'N Budder peanut butter will hit Ontario store shelves at Sobeys Inc. next week.

His company, Pro Butter Inc., has shipped 47 cases, 564 jars, of Nut 'N Budder the grocery chain. The deal isn't a blockbuster, but for Mr. Goldenberg it's a great start.

"When the bills are starting to pile up and you are spending all this money, but you have no money coming in, you ask if you made the right decision?" he said.

"But, the bottom line is, yes. My product is going to be a huge success."

His quest started after chatting with a friend at the gym about peanut butter in protein shakes. The friend told Mr. Goldenberg he preferred the taste of natural peanut butter but hated the way the oils in the natural stuff separated and how it had to be kept in the refrigerator.

Drawing on his background in the hospitality industry, he headed for the kitchen and pulled out his blender.

"I started with the base for peanut butter, which is peanuts, and then I started adding stuff," he said.

Macadamia nuts, almonds, honey, cashews and oatmeal all made their way into the mix.

Mr. Goldenberg had to take a step back from his experimentation when he introduced too much cinnamon into his spread.

"That was bad," he said. "I was throwing anything I could think of in. I was thinking: 'I am just putting stupid stuff in here.' "

He pared it back to the bare essentials: peanuts, almonds, flax seed and flax-seed oil. For sweetener, he used honey.

After nine months of experimentation he had a recipe that people were raving about.

He took his peanut butter to the Guelph Food Technology Centre, a not-for-profit research centre that helps startup companies bring food goods to market. The organization agreed to help, at a cost of $25,000.

Mr. Goldenberg bit the bullet and paid. He then got a Toronto-based marketing firm to help package his product. He said he spent a lot more than he had hoped on the packaging, because somewhere along the line he forgot it needed to be bilingual.

From there he found a manufacturer in Montreal and in April he began to court Canada's grocery giants.

Sobey's is the first big chain to place an order with Mr. Goldenberg. He said he is also negotiating with Loblaws and a national distributor in Guelph.

Nut N' Budder is already available in several health-food stores across Ottawa. Mr. Goldenberg said he has sent 11 cases of the stuff, 132 jars, to Rainbow Foods on Richmond Road in the past month.

Seeing his product finally in a national chain is something that has Mr. Goldenberg excited. He said he has spent all of his life's savings, maxed out eight different credit cards and has borrowed money from friends and family to get this product to market. He's still holding his day job as a systems engineer.

"You read about these stories all the time and what they go through. But I always thought they're crazy. Is it really worth going broke over?" he said.

"But, I thought this was a great product ... it feels great."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2006

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