Time To Stock Up: The Price of Peanut Butter Is
Set To Soar 40% in the Next Two Weeks
by
Mac
Slavo
SHTF
Plan
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After having
risen over 30% in just the last year, peanut crop damage is forcing
wholesalers and grocery store retail chains to raise the price of
this prepper staple as much as 40% in the next two weeks:
Another
hot, dry summer has devastated this year’s peanut crop, sending
prices for the legume skyrocketing and forcing peanut-butter brands
including J.M. Smucker Co.’s Jif, Unilever NV’s Skippy
and ConAgra Foods Inc.’s Peter Pan into startling price increases.
Wholesale
prices for big-selling Jif are going up 30% starting in November,
while Peter Pan will raise prices as much as 24% in a couple weeks.
Unilever wouldn’t comment on its pricing plans, but a spokesman
for Wegmans Food Markets, the closely held supermarket chain in
the Northeast U.S., said wholesale prices for all brands it carries,
including Skippy, are 30% to 35% higher than a year ago.
Kraft Foods
Inc., which launched Planters peanut butter in June, is raising
prices 40% on Oct. 31, a spokeswoman said.
…
As with
any crop, the challenges facing peanut farmers begin and end with
the weather. In Georgia, the leading U.S. peanut producing state,
the planting season was the driest in memory for John Harrell,
a sixth-generation peanut farmer in Whigham, Ga. Peanuts, typically
planted between mid-April and the beginning of June, had to wait
until several weeks after that for any rains, he said.
“I
don’t remember a year that you didn’t catch a shower
or had so little moisture in the ground to get the seed up,”
said Mr. Harrell, age 56. “It was dry about as deep as you
can dig down.”
Source:
Wall
Street Journal (Cached
Version)
If wholesale
prices are rising 25% to 40% by November 1 of this year, it will
only be a matter of time until grocery retailers will be forced
to pass those costs on to consumers.
The crunch
will affect the 90% of U.S. households that consume peanut butter
– Americans eat about 1.5 million pounds of peanut products
annually. The industry, according to the National Peanut Board,
contributes more than $4 billion to the domestic economy each
year.
High prices
are expected to trickle down to consumers soon.
Source:
Los
Angeles Times
While the larger
manufacturers are feeling the crunch, they still have the ability
to buy peanuts in mega-bulk quantities, as opposed to smaller producers
who don’t have similar access. This means that smaller brands
may eventually see even larger cost increases, which may significantly
impact the price of dehydrated peanut products often found in the
reserve food closets of preppers.
Reprinted
from SHTF Plan.
October
19, 2011
Mac
Slavo [send him mail] is a
small business owner and independent investor.
Copyright
© 2011 Mac Slavo
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