About Us

From The Founder:

Hi, I am Izhar Groner, the founder of Plantraw®.

As a kid I saw family members gaining weight and getting sick with the modern-day scourges of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

Determined not to go there, I have been studying everything I could about health and nutrition--from biology in college, to books, journals, and professional podcast in my three decades since college.

As someone who used to crave refined carbs I had to find satisfying alternatives that I could stick to--real foods that I could indulge in without harming my body.

For snacks, I would prepare for myself healthy treats which I couldn't find anywhere. I used whole organic dates instead of sugar, and kept the snacks raw, not denatured. The fiber content in the dates slowed down my digestion, buffering blood-glucose spikes, and keeping me healthy.

Friends and family loved my creations and kept asking for more, telling me that I should consider producing and selling them in stores. Since I cared about health, and wanted to improve people's wellbeing, this was exciting feedback. I decided to follow this passion and in 2016 I started Neoliv Foods, which later became Primeraw Foods, now Plantraw®.

Before this venture I was in finance. I hold an MBA from NYU with majors in both finance and economics, and I am a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Hofstra University, where I took biology. I am also a graduate of Cornell University's Plant-Based Nutrition Program.

In my three decades since college I have studied everything I could about health and nutrition—from reading books and journals to listening to professional podcast.I am the CEO and Chief Research Officer at Plantraw®.

My Mission - Nutritionally-Dense, Superb Snacks

I craft vegan, gluten-free, grain-free, and keto snacks that are as delectable as they are wholesome and nutritious.

I set up my own production facility and spared no effort in sourcing the very best ingredients so my customers may enjoy peerless treats.

All my processes revolve around preserving the nutritional value of my products.

In my factory we gently dehydrate our granolas, crackers and chips instead of baking them, to preserve their vitamins and enzymes.

We don't heat treat our Chocolith® and Ice Crage™ and don't denature them in any other way. Thus, our customers benefit from the flavonoids, antioxidants, and other micronutrients that naturally occur in raw, unsweetened, unprocessed cocoa paste and dates.

Are the glycemic loads of our non-keto products universally permissible? Well, if you allow yourself dates, mangos, and blueberries, you can enjoy our non-keto products.

The History of Plantraw®

During my initial couple of years in the market, I received customer feedback that was so consistently strong and encouraging that I decided to build my own factory.

After searching throughout Northern and Central New Jersey I found the right spot: An industrial space that had been used to manufacture mattresses, relatively clean, without any chemicals, large enough to house my expected machinery, and not too far from New York City. This is how it looked when I first entered the space with the real estate agent. 

My search had taken longer than I had expected and my machinery started arriving before the facility was built out.

With no extra storage space, I had to work around the packed machines and move them back and forth from different parts of the facility as I fitted it out.

My machinery team started assembly as soon as it could, while my construction team was still working on the space.

The space in this picture would be my future packing area.

After many months of work the facility was finally finished.

This is the packing area today.

In the production area I moved from a Robot Coupe...

...to a bowl cutter...

...and assembled other production machinery, like my depositor...

Then, after passing all the required inspections and obtaining all the required permits and certifications, I finally hired people and started production...
 

Product Development

My first product was Chocolith®, which was also known as Cocoa-Date Truffles.