Peanut Sales haven’t been hurt by last year’s peanut recall

Remember last year’s huge peanut recall from the Peanut Corporation of America? It was a huge fiasco for the entire peanut industry. You couldn’t go to the grocery store without seeing some kind of sign around the peanut butter saying whether or not it was included in the recall. Worst of all, you couldn’t find a peanut butter cookie or peanut butter crackers anywhere.

Well, it turns out that the recession has really turned the tide for all those peanut farmers who feared the huge losses that were expected due to the recall. You see, because peanut butter and peanut products are usually fairly cheap, these products have been really popular over the past 9-12 months…even with the recall.

Peanuts that were used in processed snacks, like the ones that were recalled last year were down for the year ending July 31st, but the peanuts that are used in peanut butter hit an all-time high this year. There were 1.1 billion pounds of peanuts used, which toppled the previous year’s high by 100 million pounds of peanuts.

It is fairly amusing considering Chris and I just took a trip to the grocery store and were talking about the kinds of foods that people turn to when they want to save a few dollars. We came up with bologna and bread then peanut butter and jelly. You can really see that many people will brave what they hear on the news (or what they *think* they heard on the news) to have their favorite foods.

During the recall, all the peanut butter brands like Jif and (the already damaged) Peter Pan had to remind customers through television ads as well as displays for the aisles of grocery stores that they weren’t involved in the recalls at all. Usually, when a recall like that happens mass hysteria breaks out and no one in the industry is immune to a huge fall in sales.