How Nuts.com Turned a (Nearly) 100 Year Old Mom and Pop Business into a $100M Online Empire
In 1929, as the Great Depression gripped America, Sol “Poppy” Braverman opened a humble storefront in downtown Newark, New Jersey. He called it the Newark Nut Company, and the concept was simple: fresh roasted nuts, dried fruit, and a smile behind the counter.
For decades, it stayed that way. Family-run, small-scale, and tucked into the corner of Mulberry Street, where the scent of roasted almonds drifted out to the sidewalks.
Nearly a century later, that same family business now ships thousands of orders daily from massive warehouses and pulls in over $100 million a year. It is one of e-commerce’s most unlikely success stories; a transformation that turned an aging local shop into a digital snack empire.
This is the story of how a third-generation entrepreneur bet on the internet, risked everything on a six-figure domain, and built Nuts.com into one of the most recognizable food brands online.
From pushcart to falling sales
The Newark Nut Company survived wars, recessions, and the slow erosion of Main Street retail. Sol’s sons, Kenny and Sandy, took over mid-century and kept the roasting drums hot. But by the 1990s, the neighborhood was emptying out and foot traffic was a shadow of what it had been.
By 2002, the company was barely scraping by. Annual revenue had fallen to around $1.25 million, and the family business felt more like a relic than a growth story. The internet was rewriting how people discovered and bought everything, yet the Bravermans were still running a cash-register operation.
Then came Jeff Braverman, Sol’s grandson.
A Wharton graduate working in investment banking, Jeff came home for the holidays and saw what his family business had become: a warehouse full of potential and a website that didn’t exist. He convinced his father to let him experiment with online sales.
The goal, as Jeff once told Inc. , was modest. “My goal for the website was ten orders a day.”
The birth of NutsOnline
In 1999, Jeff bought the domain Nutsonline.com, and it sounded fine at the time. America Online was the gold standard of digital names, and “online” implied legitimacy. He set up a simple e-commerce site, uploaded product photos, and began selling nuts to anyone who would click “Add to Cart.”
The early traffic trickled in and there wasn’t much traction. Search engine optimization was a mystery, but slowly, momentum built. Jeff used AdWords to target snack lovers, fitness enthusiasts, and kosher shoppers. Orders jumped from dozens a week to hundreds a day.
Within a few years, Nutsonline.com became one of the web’s hidden gems; a niche retailer thriving quietly in an age before Instagram ads and Shopify entrepreneurs.
Yet, Jeff knew the name was holding them back.
The domain that changed everything
Every great e-commerce brand has a moment when identity crystallizes. For Nuts.com, it came from one frustrating TV segment.
Jeff’s company had just landed a feature on The Rachael Ray Show. Millions of viewers saw the logo and product shots. When the credits rolled, Rachael thanked the company for sending delicious treats “from Nuts dot com.”
Everyone instinctively assumed that was the URL, but the only problem was that their business was still listed under Nutsonline.com.
Jeff realized something fundamental: people remembered Nuts.com, not Nutsonline.com. A single, clean, one-word domain carried authority, trust, and instant recall. It said, “We own this category.” So, in 2005, he started trying to buy it.
The domain was privately held, difficult to track, and wasn’t for sale. When Jeff finally reached the owner in 2008, he persuaded him to redirect the domain for thirty-six hours so he could analyze the traffic. Most visitors came from the UK, searching for a men’s magazine also called Nuts. The results weren’t encouraging, and Jeff let the deal drop.
Three years later, he circled back, and this time the owner was ready to sell.
Jeff made a single, decisive offer: $700,000 based on a gut decision. “It probably paid for itself in six months,” he told Forbes.
It took nearly seven years of on-and-off pursuit, but by 2011, Nuts.com belonged to the Bravermans.
The risky rebrand
Switching from Nutsonline.com to Nuts.com was not as simple as swapping logos.
When the new site launched, Google’s indexing stumbled. Organic traffic plunged by nearly 70 percent. Orders dropped from hundreds a day to barely half that. “We lost 100 to 150 orders per day at first,” Jeff admitted later.
For most small businesses, that kind of hit would have been fatal. But Jeff pushed through the dip. He rebuilt search authority, redesigned packaging with bold brown-and-orange branding, and poured energy into customer loyalty.
Within months, orders rebounded. Within a year, revenue surpassed every previous record.
The domain had become a signal of confidence. Owning Nuts.com told customers the company was legitimate, professional, and here to stay. It was a single word that carried the weight of a whole story: quality, freshness, and family heritage wrapped in a memorable URL.
From local roaster to e-commerce powerhouse
By 2014, the business was generating over $30 million annually. The team had moved into a state-of-the-art facility in Cranford, New Jersey, with gleaming roasters and conveyor belts humming day and night.
As of 2025, the company is generating more than $100 million in revenue, with hundreds of employees, nationwide shipping, and a growing B2B division supplying cafes and corporate snack programs.
The product line exploded far beyond cashews and almonds. Today, the company sells everything from matcha and chia seeds to chocolate espresso beans, trail mixes, and nostalgic candy.
Even as it scaled, the business kept a family heartbeat. Jeff stayed close to sourcing and product quality, insisting that every batch taste like it came from a small roaster, even if it rolled off an industrial line.
Lessons from a century-old pivot
The Nuts.com story isn’t just about roasted almonds or fancy trail mix. It is about how a family business adapted to survive across generations, proving that reinvention can be as essential as tradition.
Here are a few takeaways for founders, marketers, and brand builders:
- Own your category online.
- A premium one-word domain acts like beachfront property on the internet. It commands authority, reduces friction, and signals credibility long before the homepage loads.
- Bet on the long game.
- Jeff spent years chasing Nuts.com, and even after paying $700K, the short-term SEO hit could have been disastrous. But long-term clarity outweighed short-term pain.
- Invest in storytelling, not just logistics.
- The brand’s tone, packaging, and customer experience created emotional equity that extended far beyond price. Customers weren’t just buying snacks; they were buying into heritage.
- Modernize without losing soul.
- Automation and analytics built the infrastructure, but the family’s obsession with freshness and friendliness kept the magic intact.
- Rebrands are risky, but stagnation is deadlier.
- The biggest growth leaps often follow the scariest pivots. Replacing “Nutsonline” with “Nuts.com” wasn’t just a domain upgrade; it was a statement of intent.
The Takeaway
When Sol Braverman roasted his first batch of peanuts in 1929, he probably never imagined that his family business would one day ship tens of thousands of boxes each week to customers across North America.
But nearly a century later, the Bravermans proved something timeless. Legacy is not about holding on to the past, it’s about building something strong enough to adapt.
Nuts.com succeeded because it blended heritage with courage. A family that once relied on foot traffic now thrives on search traffic. A domain that cost $700,000 turned into a brand worth hundreds of millions.
For every founder chasing growth or rethinking their digital identity, the lesson is simple. When you believe in the long-term power of a name, of brand clarity, and of staying relentlessly fresh, you’re never just selling products; you’re building a business that can last generations.
