Pip & Nut outmuscles competition to gain top spot in nut butter

Pip & Nut has muscled out its competition to become the UK’s top-selling nut butter brand, following aggressive growth in 2024.

Achieving 33% turnover growth in the year to 31 December 2024, Pip & Nut overtook Whole Earth in Q2 2025 to take category supremacy with 15.8% share, according to Nielsen EPoS data.

The company’s jump from £13.2m to £17.5m in sales was down to a concerted effort to “push the top line and drive market penetration”, which included a significant above-the-line marketing push, according to Pippa Murray, founder and CEO of Pip & Nut.

She told The Grocer that brand extensions into snack bars, expansion into Europe, and investment in the business’ core had helped propel growth, bringing in new customers and distribution points for the 100% peanut spread.

Pip & Nut gained a foothold in Belgium at the end of 2024 through the acquisition of a small nut butter company.

Despite the year’s investment, Pip & Nut managed to halve its operating loss to £168k in 2024 and achieve underlying EBITDA profitability.

The brand’s launch of oat bars in 2024 has since been followed by the company’s first protein bar – launched in September 2025 – with bars “really key” to the company’s portfolio-building aims.

“Permissible indulgence is still a huge trend,” Murray said.

“This year, we’ve been looking at how we broaden the snacking category. With our move into cereal bars, we saw the same problem we saw when we moved into nut butter. A lot of these products still contain palm oil – it’s why I started the business. 

“The aim is to deliver a delicious, permissible product [without using palm oil] – it’s a different category, but it remains the same problem we’re tackling.”

Consumer scepticism of processed foods has helped the company, which was founded to offer a clean-label alternative to peanut butters stabilised through the addition of products like palm oil.

Nearly two-thirds of nut butter buyers now purchase palm oil-free products, and the category is having a “reappraisal” thanks to the shift in consumer behaviour.

“Now it’s being seen from both a taste point of view – and for health,” Murray said.

“People are much more educated about the health benefits of increasing the number of plants they eat, and including nuts in their diet: it’s super exciting, and people are only becoming more educated.”

Pip & Nut’s acquisition of the small Belgian nut butter maker also set the company up to push for growth overseas.

Taking over the brand’s stocking points in Belgian supermarket Delhaize, Pip & Nut has retained the former business’ MD as area manager.

“Delhaize has been excellent for the past six months, and we have just moved into Carrefour [Belgium] as well,” Murray said.

“It’s an interesting market in Europe: nut butter is still emerging over there, while it’s quite established here in the UK. Hopefully [the acquisition] will act as a stepping stone over into the Netherlands, too.”