Nunda, N.Y.-based Once Again Nut Butter celebrated 50 years of being 100% employee-owned in October.

“The 86-member team successfully brings organic and natural peanut, almond, cashew and seed butters, plus snacks, to market, while simultaneously striving to protect the environment, engage in Fair Trade practices, provide supply-chain transparency, and uphold unsurpassed safety and quality standards,” Once Again said. “They also actively support their community both at home and abroad.”

Once Again was founded by husband-and-wife duo Jeremy Thaler and Constance Potter, and as the name suggests, they had launched other employee-owned companies before. It all started with Thaler making homemade nut butter with a coffee roaster in an 800-square-foot basement, the company said.

Now, Once Again operates under an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), which involves the following:

• ESOP is a retirement benefit plan that allows employees to be invested in the business with their own performance.
• Employees become participants in the plan after one year of service and are fully vested after six.
• Unlike most ESOPs, where voting is based on number of stock shares, each participant gets one vote (1 person = 1 vote), and committees help direct initiatives to meet company goals.
• Employee participation in governance is supported through Board Member elections, with at least three employee-owners on the Board of Directors at all times.
• This participative style of management boosts employee retention, even in hard-to-fill manufacturing jobs, and inspires the team to produce products at a higher level of integrity and provide superior customer service.

“At Once Again, we see ourselves as more than just employees,” said Gael Orr, Once Again’s director of marketing and employee owner for more than 15 years, “We are business owners and proud to be part of something bigger than ourselves. The ESOP model has a way of uniting us, not just as a team — but as a community — toward a common goal of helping our company be successful.” 

This article is an excerpt from the November 2024 issue of Supermarket Perimeter. You can read the entire Corporate Responsibility feature and more in the digital edition here.