10-14-2011, 09:35 PM
this may or may not be an artificial/contrived "crisis" /shortage but i'm going to stock up. i think you're going to see a run on peanut butter very soon. like this month. i'm sticking this post in 2 places so everyone will know.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Brace yourselves, peanut butter lovers -- prices are set to spike following one of the worst peanut harvest seasons growers have seen in years.
Prices for a ton of runner peanuts, commonly used to make peanut butter, hit nearly $1,200 this week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up from just $450 per ton a year ago.
It won't be long before consumers see this price increase reflected on store shelves.
Kraft (KFT, Fortune 500) will raise prices for its Planters brand peanut butter by 40% starting Oct. 31, while ConAgra (CAG, Fortune 500) expects increases of more than 20% for its Peter Pan brand.
A spokesperson for Unilever (UL), which makes Skippy, would say only that it's watching the situation "very closely."
Representatives for J.M. Smucker (SJM, Fortune 500), which makes Jif, did not respond to a request for comment, though the Associated Press reported that Jif's wholesale prices are set to rise 30% in November.
What's to blame for this sticky situation? The intense heat and drought that hit the southern U.S. this year, said John Beasley, a professor of crop physiology and management at the University of Georgia.
"It was just unmerciful, and we had a lot of problems setting the crop," he said. "I literally walked some fields that had zero yield."
![[Image: peanut-butter-image.jpg]](http://www.thefatlossauthority.com/fat_loss_tips/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/peanut-butter-image.jpg)
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Brace yourselves, peanut butter lovers -- prices are set to spike following one of the worst peanut harvest seasons growers have seen in years.
Prices for a ton of runner peanuts, commonly used to make peanut butter, hit nearly $1,200 this week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up from just $450 per ton a year ago.
It won't be long before consumers see this price increase reflected on store shelves.
Kraft (KFT, Fortune 500) will raise prices for its Planters brand peanut butter by 40% starting Oct. 31, while ConAgra (CAG, Fortune 500) expects increases of more than 20% for its Peter Pan brand.
A spokesperson for Unilever (UL), which makes Skippy, would say only that it's watching the situation "very closely."
Representatives for J.M. Smucker (SJM, Fortune 500), which makes Jif, did not respond to a request for comment, though the Associated Press reported that Jif's wholesale prices are set to rise 30% in November.
What's to blame for this sticky situation? The intense heat and drought that hit the southern U.S. this year, said John Beasley, a professor of crop physiology and management at the University of Georgia.
"It was just unmerciful, and we had a lot of problems setting the crop," he said. "I literally walked some fields that had zero yield."