Artisan’s Way Organics is a small-batch chocolate and nut food manufacturer based in Madeira Park on the Sunshine Coast. Their food products include Arriba Raw Chocolate and Better Butters Nut Butters, including chocolate bars, peanut butter cups, and nut butters free of refined sugars and preservatives. All of their products are organic and non-GMO, and almost all are vegan, with a few exceptions where they use organic, raw, unpasteurized honey. All of their nut butters are vegan.
Owner & Founder Brian has always loved recreating his favourite products at home, which led him to explore trying different methods of creating nut butters. He found many of the methods out there weren’t working as he had hoped, so he began exploring the idea of stone grinding. He then purchased a small tabletop stone grinder to experiment, realizing it was by far the best way to make creamy, smooth, delectable nut and seed butters. The butters became so popular that the little tabletop stone grinder could no longer keep up with the orders coming in!
In 2013, he purchased a commercial-sized grinder and from that point on the business went from part-time to full-time.
What is stone grinding? Stone grinding keeps the temperature and friction low to maintain nutritional benefits. Typical commercial butters are made with large machines that use blades to cut the nuts down. This creates a lot of heat and oxidation which can destroy nutrients and damage the delicate oils and amino acids. Stone grinding crushes the nuts rather than cutting them, preserving nutrients and maximizing nutrient absorption.
The quality, care, and attention that started this journey are still present in every batch created. It’s still made in small batches and never mass-produced. If you value quality, nutrition, and taste, then you will truly enjoy Better Butters.
AW Organics has since introduced delicious, traceable chocolate and some select bulk food options to their product offerings. For their Arriba chocolate, they use Arriba Nacional Cacao grown in the rich volcanic soils of Ecuador. Their cacao beans are thoughtfully sourced from small family farms and are fair trade to improve the lives of Ecuadorians.
Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?
Answer: We purchase the majority of our ingredients at OM Foods in Nelson, which is locally owned, and another large portion from Sunco Foods. We bank at the local credit union and do not support the big banks because we like how the credit union takes extra care in supporting local businesses and keeps a large portion of their investments local. We also order bulk from our suppliers and support other smaller local businesses who can’t quite afford many of the larger supplier company’s minimums so we add their items to our order, and they buy from us at cost.
Question: What social and environmental practices are you proud of?
We pay more than the living wage in our area. We only have 2 employees, but one makes $23, and the other makes $25 hourly for entry-level work.
We will not pay less than $20 as we strongly believe the minimum wage is way too low for anyone to survive in our economy, especially with housing affordability in B.C. Currently, we are looking into implementing an employee equity system. We also participate in a few local charity auctions donating products auctioned for money for the charity. We are a fairly low energy-intensive business, but we plan to go a step further and add solar to our production. We also avoid plastic as much as possible. All our jars are glass instead of plastic.
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