In 2012 second year engineering student Antoine van Heerden thought he would try his luck selling his parents’ macadamias in his residence for some extra cash. Luckily, he was out of luck. Nuts, it turns out, are not top priority amongst the university crowd. He needed to be a little more innovative, and found that once roasted and ground, macadamias make the creamiest, moreish golden butter that is simply irresistible. Everyone who tasted it wanted more. 

Soon Antoine started roasting, grinding and bottling in his student digs. Friends, roommates and fellow athletes were all roped in to help stick labels, twist lids and man his stand at the local farmers market. The never-ending hours of explaining nut butter to perplexed market-goers eventually paid off and the product started gaining traction. 

By the time Antoine had enrolled for his Masters at Stellenbosch University, the butters had gained so much traction that he was faced with a tough decision. With Entrepreneurship in his DNA he just could not resist giving the business a go, and so, withdrew from further studies. 

With blood, sweat and tears, and a few lucky breaks, the business was starting to become recognized. ButtaNutt moved into the Launch Lab Entrepreneurial hub on Stellenbosch campus. In 2016 ButtaNutt won the Western Cape’s PERA award (Premier’s Entrepreneurship Recognition Awards) for best Emerging Agri-Processing Business. The butters were accepted onto the shelves of Wellness Warehouse, Pick n Pay and Dis-Chem. In 2017 ButtaNutt was invited to participate in international trade shows with the DTI. 

Production moved to Worcester, then Maitland and eventually found its forever home in the rural, picturesque and hot-as-hell town of Paarl. Happy and settled, with an incredible team, and FSSC22000 accreditation, the business kept on growing.

In 2015 the ButtaNutt team had started home-type experimental trials on nut milks – hours of squeezing cheese cloth, only to watch the curdles appear in their coffee. Antoine travelled to the US in 2016 to check out the scene and became hooked on the idea of producing commercially viable milks locally. This dream eventually became a reality in 2021 when ButtaNutt launched 3 milk alternatives. The reception was overwhelmingly positive and soon milk production far overshadowed the nut butters. 

In 2022 PepsiCo invested in ButtaNutt and this enabled the installation of a brand new state-of-the-art Tetra Pak processing and packaging plant. Capacity jumped from 20,000L to 100,000L per day, offering a lot of scope for additional products, co-packing and export opportunities. 

What’s next, who knows? ButtaNutt has always been passionate about New Product Development. We’ve dabbled with ice-cream, chocolate, rusks and peanuts, one thing’s for sure, there will be many more nutty, wholesome or trend-pushing plant-powered products to devour.