Containers for nut butters and spreads
For businesses packaging nut butters and spreads, with capacity, neck finish, case pack and case price published on every container.
Guides
Getting started
Is this for you at allThe making is easy and the safety case is not. Everything hard about this craft happens before the jar is filled.What it costs to startThe grinder and the nuts. Then the testing and the documentation, which is the half nobody budgets.Turning a batch into a productA product is a documented kill step, a fixed formulation, a jar and a label that matches all three.What your state allowsExpect this to sit outside cottage food in most states, for the same reason the safety case is upstream.
The product itself
What a nut butter is, and the ten percent rulePeanut butter has a standard of identity. Everything else is named descriptively and has far more freedom.Oil separation, and the choice behind itNothing is holding the oil in suspension unless you put it there. Separation is a formulation decision, not a fault.Roast and grind, and what each one decidesThe roast decides flavor, color and safety. The grind decides texture and how fast it separates.Water is the enemy, and not for the reason you expectA drop of water in a nut butter seizes it. The same dryness that causes that is what keeps the product shelf stable.
The kill step
Dry is not safeLow water activity stops growth and does not kill. In a dry, fatty food Salmonella survives for months and resists heat far better.The roast is the kill stepIt has to be sufficient, validated and recorded, and sufficient is a different question from well roasted.After the roast, nothing can fix a mistakeEverything downstream of the kill step is about not undoing it. There is no second chance in the jar.Aflatoxin, and the twenty parts per billion figureA mold toxin that arrives with the crop. FDA may consider peanuts and peanut products above 20 ppb to be adulterated.Keeping water out, and why a dry room mattersWater in a low-moisture facility creates growth sites the dry product never would. Dry cleaning is the practice.
What goes wrong
It separatedThe default behavior of ground nuts with no stabilizer. A problem only if the label did not say so.It seized or went grainyWater got in. A damp jar, a wet utensil or condensation under the lid, and it does not reverse.It went rancidOxidation of the nut oil. Old nuts, warm storage, light and headspace, in roughly that order.It is gritty when it should be smoothAn incomplete grind, a grinder past its service life, or sugar that never dissolved because there is no water to dissolve it in.Mold on the surfaceRare, and always a sign that water got in. It should not be possible in a correctly made product.The batch is inconsistentColor, texture or flavor varying within a run. Usually the roast, sometimes a long grind heating the batch.
Jars and lids
Wide mouth, and why it is not optionalA knife has to reach the bottom and the sides. That decides the mouth before anything else does.Jar sizes, and the headspace argumentFrom 89 to 946 ml on this shelf. The smaller jar is often the better product for an oil that oxidizes.Closures and the sealNeck finish decides what fits. The seal is keeping air and moisture out, not holding a vacuum in.Glass or plasticEvery jar on this shelf is glass. Plastic has a real answer in food service and in anything shipped loose.
Selling it
Naming it, and the one name that is spoken forPeanut butter is defined. Almond butter, cashew butter and the rest are described.The label, and why allergens matter more hereFive required elements, and an allergen statement that has to account for everything your equipment touches.Who inspects youYour state department of agriculture, and in this category they will ask about the roast and the allergen controls.What to chargeNuts dominate, and they move with the harvest. Price with enough margin to survive a bad crop year.
Growing the operation
Tools and directories
Beyond peanuts
Other nuts and seed buttersAlmond, cashew, sunflower and tahini. No standard of identity, a different allergen picture, and another changeover.Sweet spreads, and where they stop being low moistureChocolate and nut spreads share the craft. Anything that brings water changes the preservation question entirely.
