Pic Picot

An engaging and very funny autobiography of a New Zealand baby boomer, “Pic” tells the story of a privileged teenager unimpressed by the blandishments of a convention life. He taught himself leatherwork and handmade sandals and bags supported a nomadic, barefoot lifestyle that spanned small town New Zealand, the Pacific Islands, the hippy trail across Noth America and a winter sharing a derelict tenement with the homeless of London.

His arrival back in New Zealand earned him a fortnight in a psychiatric ward and encounter group marathons at the newly formed Centrepoint, before joining an isolated Coromandel commune. A chance meeting with an English woodworker saw him become a fine furniture maker, before financial exigencies turned him into a tawdry giftware manufacturer. His “Panic Packs”, glass-fronted emergency boxes filled with cigarettes or condoms, tea bags or vibrators, and his Cannabis Fertiliser found their way into many New Zealander’s Christmas stockings before he chucked it in, built a yacht and sailed off into the Pacific.

A second divorce, a restaurant, a charter boat directory and a sailing school filled his forties when deteriorating eyesight pushed him towards retirement. At fifty five, disgusted by the arrival of sugared peanut butter in NZ, he made a few jars of his own in a converted concrete mixer. 

Pic’s Peanut Butter developed a cult following that forced him to continually grow production, commissioning four new factories in ten years. The last, Pic’s Peanut Butter World, becoming a significant tourist destination, employing 55 people and producing 25000 jars a day.

This is a refreshingly different kind of business book. One man’s life story, told with generousity and humour. His business success appears to surprise no one more than himself, but Pic’s stories and observations provide a genuine insight into the meaning and practice of entrepreneurship.

Mark Hadlow

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