The Fate of Peanut Butter

[Robbien]

Source: BNet



The recall list is still growing and all things peanut are taking a hit.

Peanut growers are anticipating $1 billion in losses, according to the Georgia Peanut Commission. And jarred peanut butter sales continue to drop, despite the fact that no peanut butter sold directly to consumers was ever part of the recall. A Harvard study last month confirmed that a majority of Americans mistakenly believe major brands of peanut butter are affected.

Meanwhile, Peanut Corporation of America, the source of the salmonella contamination, has filed for bankruptcy, and it looks like it may be difficult for the smaller companies PCA has wronged to receive any compensation.

Serendipitously, the National Peanut Board had a big promotional celebration in New York last week, giving peanut growers and producers the chance to correct consumer misconceptions. The event was in the works even before the peanut scandal started, but organizers said it wound up being a great opportunity to respond to the crisis.

Whether the event had much effect remains to be seen. Earlier, Smucker ran an ad campaign to let consumers know its peanut butter was perfectly safe, yet Jif sales are still weak.

Peanut butter will no doubt recover eventually, but it could take awhile. Customers stayed away from spinach for a long time after the 2006 E. coli outbreak, and that recall was much smaller and shorter than this one.


Read more: http://industry.bnet.com/food/1000526/the-fate-of-peanut-butter/

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The Peanut Board fell down on the job. It should have been out there fast loudly saying that Peter Pan, Jif, etc peanut butters were not part of the problem.

[Sequoia]

1. I still intend to buy Skippy.

[FailureToCommunicate]

17. "Skip" the sugar and the hydrog fat and go with all natural "TEDDY" It's mighty fine!

[GTO_fan]

21. Interesting

Does it come in a "crunchy" variety?

[ima_sinnic]

24. yes, "Super Chunky." It is just ground-up roasted peanuts with a little salt.

Hanaford has a house brand ("Nature's Place") of natural peanut butter that is actually cheaper than some of the hydrogenated fat ones.

[aquart]

18. I immediately went to the Skippy site.

They don't use any of that stuff. I checked.

[Igel]

19. It's still not all peanut.

"Skippy® peanut butter contains over 90 percent select roasted peanuts. It also contains extremely small amounts of vegetable oil stabilizers to improve smoothness and prevent separation, plus a small amount of sugars and salt to enhance the peanut flavor. For additional information on ingredients in Skippy® products visit our Nutritional Facts section."

I make peanut butter--I roast the raw peanuts I buy in bulk and then food process them till creamy. A bit of salt is the only additive. (I even make a point of shaking all the dead-bug-bits off of the peanuts before I cook them :-)

[closeupready]

20. That must be a recent change, because they always did have transfats,

from what I saw on the labels. If not, I'll give them another look.

Actually

http://www.jif.com/products/details.asp?prodID=325

Here it says it contains 2% or less of partially hydrogenated oil. Unless I'm looking at this wrong.

Oops, I see we were talking about Skippy not Jif. Sorry.

[Orrex]

2. I blame George Washington Carver

If he'd never invented the delicious damned stuff, we wouldn't even be in this predicament.

[Oak2004]

26. Leave George Washington Carver alone! PB was invented by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_butter

[annabanana]

3. I have continued to buy peanut butter in a jar... I am looking

forward to an "all clear" before I buy peanut butter cookies or peanut butter & cheese crackers...

[valerief]

4. Send the peanut butter to the bank CEOs and the RNC. nt

[KT2000]

5. Let this be a lesson

When businesses band together, form a lobbying organization, work for less oversight from government and then when one of them fails from their cherished lack of oversight - they all go down together. They created their own situation.

[whoneedstickets]

15. Exactly! They all signed the corporate suicide pact....

They decided to hang together, now they all hang separately.

[onehandle]

6. I've been eating peanut butter products just the same since the event. And I'm in Georgia.

Peanut Butter cookies.

Mmmmmm....

[KoKo]

7. Agree...they should have gotten ahead of it all...unless they were worried that their own

products might have been contaminated in some way, too. Maybe it was a call of the lawyers. Don't say anthing that puts you on the spot until you know for sure you are clean? :shrug:

[Politicalboi]

8. They sure did drop the ball

I thought it was for all peanut products. Since I haven't worked for months I haven't eaten a Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich so I haven't paid much attention. The only peanut product I would eat would be peanut M&M's but I have stayed away from them.

[Captain Hilts]

9. Yes, they did. I hate to see folks unfairly hurt by crap like this. Hang toubh, Jif! nt

[buckrogers1965]

10. Industry should have policed itself better.

The major players need to be inspecting the plants of their suppliers to make sure they are not contaminating the food supply. Because of this failure to police themselves they are all being punished for the neglect.

[trotsky]

11. I would say that the people who freaking DIED are the ones who are being punished.

Along with their families. Has industry EVER successfully policed itself?

[alfredo]

13. Self regulation always breaks down.

[whoneedstickets]

16. Self policing is an oxymoron.

The incentive to 'satisfice' overwhelm any impulse to conduct rigorous inspections. Shareholders don't care whether you're being diligent, they care about containing costs.

[alfredo]

12. Krogers have notices restating the safety of peanut butter. Peanut butter is

my meat.

[DJ13]

14. Well, maybe in light of a glut of product they should reverse their price increases?

Every food product on the shelves, including peanut butter, has had the raw material price collapse back to prices last seen in 2006, and yet the food companies continue to keep prices as high (if not continue raising them) as they were back last year when raw materials cost twice as much.

Sure the bad PR from other peanut products hasnt helped, but for some people the unwarranted prices are probably a contributing factor in lower sales.

[clixtox]

23. Lower prices? Are you crazy?

All companies exist to make profits, in fact they are expected to constantly make more and more profits.

They have to make more profits every 3 month period than they ever have before in a "quarter" during the same part of the year.

If these hard working, all-American, profit increase seeking, corporate, food staples producers, manufacturers, distributors and retailers don't maintain and improve their margins, all down the line, the economy will become depressed and jobs will be lost.

Don't be a subversive, anti-American, atheistic, radical, anarchist terrorist!

Support our corporate masters and pay too much for processed garbage.

Or grow/make your own!

[Doctor Cynic]

22. We can dump them onto white collar criminal prison lunch menus.

[ima_sinnic]

25. I just bought 2 jars of Hanaford "Nature's Place" brand natural peanut butter

--no hydrogenated fat, no sugar, just peanuts and a little salt, and it's cheaper than some of the brands with hydrogenated fat like Jif and Skippy. "Teddy" brand is also just peanuts with salt. There is no reason to avoid peanut butter, except for the hydrogenated oil (= saturated fat) in some of them.

I see Skippy has a new "natural" pb, with sugar, and some kind of stabilizer to prevent the oil from separating out. This is just pandering to the "fad" for "natural" and is NOT "natural." With natural peanut butter, there is natural oil separation. Big deal. A few seconds of stirring with a table knife takes care of that.