Beloved Velvet Peanut Butter to move production to Detroit with plans to sell nationwide
Posted By: Detroit Free Press on July 11, 2025. For more information, please click here to read the source article.
It was last November when local entrepreneur Mark Rieth announced that he acquired the Velvet Peanut Butter brand — a Detroit-born brand with a decades-long history and iconic label.
On Thursday, July 10, Rieth told attendees at the Global Citizen Now Detroit event at the Department Hudson, a new event space next to the Hudson’s Detroit building in downtown Detroit, that production of Velvet Peanut Butter would move from Georgia to Detroit next year, and the company has a commitment to combating food insecurity.
Rieth did not name a specific location but said it will be in Detroit.
“The new facility means jobs,” Rieth told the audience. “Our intention is to put people back to work and fight food insecurity.”
More recently, Rieth’s Velvet Peanut Butter delivered about 25,000 jars of peanut butter to the Forgotten Harvest distribution center in Oak Park.
“When I acquired Velvet Peanut Butter, it was driven by my passion for authentic, high-quality local brands,” Rieth said in a news release about the donation. “But being local means more than geography — it means doing what you can to be part of the community. We’re proud to support Forgotten Harvest and its critical mission to provide nutritious food to those who need it most.”
On Thursday, Rieth also said Velvet Peanut Butter will partner with Fraser’s Carmela Foods for its distribution footprint in Michigan, as well as Indiana and Ohio.
Rieth said plans are for the Velvet Peanut Butter brand to go national in 2026, as well as to introduce new products such as single-serve items.
Velvet Peanut Butter is known for its yellow label featuring images of three freckled cartoon boys with the words “Fresh,” “Pure,” and “Delicious” under their images.
Meijer stores, Busch’s Fresh Food Market and other retailers in Michigan sell crunchy and smooth varieties of Velvet Peanut Butter, according to velvetpeanutbutter.com. Starting in August, Rieth said Velvet Peanut Butter will launch in Kroger stores.
Velvet Peanut Butter truck driver beginnings
Paul Zuckerman founded Velvet Peanut Butter and was known as the “Peanut Butter King,” according to the recently released “Classic Michigan Food and Drinks: The Stories Behind the Brand” by Jon Milan and Gail Offen (Arcadia Publishing, $24.99).
The story goes that Zuckerman, a truck driver who immigrated to the U.S. from Turkey with his parents, got into the peanut butter-making business in the late 1930s. Zuckerman, along with friend Harry Goss, according to the book authors, set up the peanut butter-making operations in a Detroit garage.
Goss handled products and Zuckerman handled sales, according to the book authors. Zuckerman, who sold the peanut butter by cases from his car, eventually got the peanut butter on grocery store shelves in metro Detroit.
“Besides great taste, Velvet had another competitive advantage — consistency. It was one of the first brands to homogenize,” the authors wrote.
After getting Velvet Peanut Butter into stores, by the late 1950s, Velvet merged with the Sunshine Brand. Years later, Sunshine stopped making the peanut butter, and Zuckerman bought the company back.
About those boys on the label
Velvet Peanut Butter was well known for the three, freckled-faced boy cartoon characters on the yellow label. Out of the three boys, a halo-like image was over the middle boy’s head. The boys on the label, according to the Michigan Food and Drinks authors, were modeled after Zuckerman’s son, Norbert.
Velvet drifts away, then returns
In 1985, Zuckerman sold the peanut butter business. Zuckerman, who resided in Franklin, died in 1986.
Not long after his death, production of Velvet Peanut Butter ceased, and the brand drifted away. It was around 2008 when Michigan native Eric Bruce, who was living in Georgia, resurrected the brand and began distribution in Michigan.
After owning the brand for more than 15 years, Bruce says he wasn’t planning to sell the brand until he met Rieth.
“It’s been a true labor of love to revive Velvet Peanut Butter and shepherd the brand for the past 16 years,” Bruce said in the November 2024 release announcing the sale. “Now is the perfect time for me to step away and turn this iconic brand over to Mark for him to lead the exciting next chapter.”
Rieth is the owner of Detroit Liquid Ventures, producer of FÜL Beverage, a line of nonalcoholic beers and sports drink alternatives. In 2024, Rieth acquired a majority stake in the Lansing Brewing Co. He is also the former owner of Atwater Brewery. In 2005, Rieth bought Atwater, located in the Rivertown district brewery and called Stoney Creek Brewing at that time. He returned it to its former Atwater name. In 2020, Molson Coors bought Atwater Brewery. Tilray Brands acquired Atwater in September 2024.
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