HRN Community Sessions
National Peanut Month with Peanut Butter & Co.
Happy National Peanut Month! Celebrate the month of the peanut with none other than Lee Zalben, Founder & President of Peanut Butter & Co, a sandwich shop in NYC and line of all-natural peanut butter. It was only a matter of time when people started clamoring to take the peanut butter home. Today, Peanut Butter & Co. is sold in ten delicious flavors in over 10,000 stores around the country and in Canada, the U.K., Japan, and Hong Kong. And the sandwich shop has turned into a pilgrimage site for many peanut butter lovers all over the world. Lee's dream to open a peanut butter sandwich shop did not just become a reality, but he also created the market for specialty peanut butter. Tune in and hear how his culinary journey started in college and find out what plans are in store for the future of Peanut Butter & Co! This program was sponsored by The International Culinary Center. "All of our peanuts are grown in the US - and that's very important to us. 90-95% of the peanuts we use come within a 200 mile radius of our plant in Georgia." 14:00 "What we realized with our sandwich shop is that adults eat more peanut butter than kids every day. Nobody was producing a product that catered to adults as well as kids. So Peanut Butter & Co was the first peanut butter to go out there and say 'hey you can buy this for yourself and we'll give you a healthful formula, great packaging, and delicious flavors that you're craving. We'll do all the work for you so it's easy and convenient.' " [21:00] --Lee Zalben, Founder & President of Peanut Butter & Co