About Us

Our Leadership Team

We, the employees of King Nut, pledge to ourselves, co-workers, customers and company that we will do all that we can to maintain the highest level of quality in every aspect of our job. This will be done to the best of our abilities—making every day a new day to achieve higher quality standards for the products that we make at King Nut.

Michael Kanan

Chairman, Board of Directors

Mr. Kanan has been chairman since he bought King Nut Company in 1989. He also was President and Chief Executive Officer through 2003. He has been a food industry executive his entire professional career.

Martin Kanan

President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Kanan has been President and Chief Executive Officer since October 2003. Mr. Kanan joined King Nut in 1991 as its National Sales Manager and has also been Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

Matthew R. Kanan

Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer

Mr. Kanan has been Executive Vice President in charge of Sales and Marketing since 2003. Mr. Kanan joined King Nut in 1991 as a Regional Manager of Sales and Marketing.

Joseph A. Valenza

Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Valenza has been Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since 2006. Before that he was Vice President and Corporate Controller.

Paul Storsin

Vice President Quality Assurance and Food Safety

Paul Storsin is our Vice President of Quality Assurance and Food Safety. Prior to this, Paul worked at Aladdin’s Baking Company as their Director of Quality and Food Safety since 2019 and also with Orlando Baking Company as their Director of Quality and Food Safety since 2012. Previously, he held quality management positions at Case Farms as well as Park Poultry.

Michael Smith

Vice President Manufacturing and Plant Operations

Mr. Smith is our Vice President of Manufacturing and Plant operations. Mike joined King Nut as a machine operator while in college in 2001.

Justin Rosenberg

Vice President and Corporate Controller

Mr. Rosenberg is our Vice President and Corporate Controller. He started with King Nut in November 2005 as our Accounting Manager. He moved up quickly to Assistant Controller, Controller then Director and Corporate Controller.

Welcome to King Nut

Ownership: 100% owned by Kanan Enterprises; Michael Kanan–Chairman; Martin Kanan –President and CEO and Matthew Kanan– Executive VP & Chief Marketing Officer

Employees: Approximately 375

Annual Sales/Revenues: Kanan Enterprises is a privately held company and does not disclose sales figures.

Production: 3 shifts; approximately 500 million annual packages produced.

Union: Plant Employees are all members of the Teamsters Union.

Headquarters: Solon, OH (suburb of Cleveland) Headquarters, manufacturing and main warehousing: 350,000 square feet spread throughout 3 buildings in Solon. Factory outlet store in Solon.

Products: Peanuts, Nuts, Dried Fruits, Trail Mixes, Snack Mixes, Pretzels.

Brands: King’s Delicious, Peterson’s, Summer Harvest Brands and Nature’s Basics plus numerous private label products.

Supplies for: Airlines, Supermarkets, Warehouse Clubs, Corporate Gifts, Convenience Stores, Ice Cream Toppings, Food Ingredients, Vending, Food Service, Private Label, Co-Packing and various other Retailers.

Airlines Customers: Delta, American, Southwest, JetBlue, Hawaiian, Korean, Spirit plus many other regional and international carriers.

King Nut’s Green Mission

At King Nut Companies maintaining the highest level of quality in every aspect of our job also includes striving for environmental sustainability. In April 2008 we began an aggressive reduction of energy usage as well as recycling as much of our waste as possible. We believe it is the duty and responsibility of ALL American corporations to help ease the strain on our environment. We hope our actions will serve as a model for other companies, both domestic and foreign, to take the initiative to reduce waste and energy consumption and leave a little bit smaller environmental footprint. Here’s what we’ve been able to do at the administrative & plant levels since the program’s inception:

  • Reduced weight in our packaging by almost 38% in the past two years to save over 237,000 pounds annually of polyethylene plastic packaging.
  • Replaced all factory and office lighting with energy efficient LED lighting.
  • Recycling of all paper, plastic and aluminum products used by employees in the course of business.
  • Eliminating the purchase of Styrofoam coffee cups and switching to recyclable utensils.
  • Encouraging employees to only print when necessary and utilizing the two-sided print option.
  • Recycle all corrugated materials as well as plastic film cores, tote liners & peanut super sacks.
  • Power down all electrical devices and machines in all plants that are not in use. This greatly increases energy efficiency.
  • Natures Basics line uses 40% post-consumer film.

Corrugated:

  • 96% of all corrugated boxes are made with material supplied by certified fiber sourcing programs such as Sustainable Forestry Initiative ® (SFI), Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and American Tree Farm System (ATFS). This is what makes corrugated fiberbased packaging the Sustainable Choice.
  • Close to 90% of the all the corrugated converted by our supplier is 100% recycled, 93% post-consumer waste. Our primary corrugated sheet supplier uses mills that are state-ofthe-art and only manufacture 100% recycled linerboard and medium from OCC (old corrugated containers). Contrary to this, a small percentage of our corrugated products will contain less than 100% recycled fiber.
  • Our corrugate supplier recovers approximately 95% of the post-industrial corrugated waste generated during the manufacturing process. This waste is baled and returned to paper mills for recycling. Corrugated is the single most recycled packaging material. 96 percent of corrugated produced in 2018 was recovered for recycling, and almost all of that material was recycled into new products.


All of our oil used for roasting is recyclable

Recycled Materials Breakdown:

Below is a breakdown of goods recycled from February 2020 through January 2021:

  • Paper, plastic and aluminum – 3,300 lbs.
  • PET bottles – 10,000 Lbs.
  • Film cores – 24,500 lbs.
  • Super sacks – 21,250 lbs.
  • Corrugated materials – 950,000 lbs.
  • Miscellaneous – 250 lbs.
  • Total = 1,006,000 lbs.

Earth Day

King Nut Companies annually celebrates Earth Day where employees plant trees and other plants. Several employees also volunteer to clean up trash and waste along our properties here in Ohio.

Future Projects

These are simply a few actions we take to help improve our community and use less of the earth’s precious resources. King Nut Companies will continually search for ways to improve source reduction and increase energy efficiency that will enhance our environmental sustainability.

Rev. January 2021