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 Skippy
Peanut Butter, one of America's favorite brands was first
sold on February 1, 1933.
Today,
almost 90 million jars are sold annually. That's
almost 3 jars every second!
More
Skippy has been sold than any other peanut butter
in the world!
Georgia
is the #1 peanut producing state, but did you
know that Texas is #2.
Most
of the peanuts used to make Skippy peanut butter
are grown in Georgia, Texas, Florida and
Oklahoma.
Farmers
(called growers) harvest the peanuts during September,
October and November then
sell them to companies
known as peanut shellers.
The
shellers use special machines to remove the peanut
kernels from the shells, clean and sort
them by size.
The
makers of Skippy peanut butter buy peanuts from
the shellers. The shellers then ship them
to the peanut
butter plant in railroad hopper cars. Each railroad car holds
approximately 190,000
pounds of
peanuts (about the weight of 16 elephants!)
It
takes 772 peanuts to make a 16.3 oz jar
of peanut butter!
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The
average American child will eat 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches
by the time he or she
graduates from
high school.
In
the last year, more than 75% of all American
families purchased peanut butter.
Americans
eat about 3 pounds of peanut butter per person
each year, totaling about
500 million pounds... enough
to cover the floor of the Grand Canyon.
Americans
eat enough peanut butter in a year to make over
10 billion peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches! (Estimating
2 tablespoons peanut butter per sandwich.)
Americans
spend almost 800 million dollars a year on peanut
butter, making it one of the most
frequently purchased
items in the supermarket.
This
year, annual consumption of peanut butter is
expected to reach a record 800 million pounds
- that's enough
peanut butter to form a line of 18-ounce jars stretching
almost one and one-third
times around the
world.
Nobody
consumes as much peanut butter as Americans;
however, it is popular in Canada, Holland,
England, Germany
and Saudi Arabia. It is gaining popularity throughout Eastern
Europe.
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Dr.
George Washington Carver is referred to as the "peanut
wizard" and father of the peanut
industry, but he
did not invent peanut butter!
Two
peanut farmers have been elected president of
the United States: Thomas Jefferson and
Jimmy Carter.
Baseball
Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter is also a peanut
farmer.
There
are currently more than 30 public figures and
celebrities who share a devotion to peanut
butter as members
of the Adult Peanut Butter Lovers' Fan Club. They include:
President Bill
Clinton, Julia
Child, Larry King, Jack Nicholson, Tom Selleck, Kim Basinger,
Barbara Walters,
Olympian Bonnie
Blair, Barbara Bush, Dan Rather, Madonna, Cher, William
F. Buckley, Billy Joel,
Julia Roberts,
Bill Cosby and Michael J. Fox.
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Peanut
butter was first introduced in 1890, when a unknown St.
Louis physician encouraged the
owner of food products
company to process and package ground peanut paste as a nutritious
protein substitute.
Nearly
half of the U.S. peanut crop is made into peanut
butter each year.
November
is Peanut Butter Lover's Month; March is National
Peanut Month
The
world's largest peanut butter and jelly sandwich
measured 40 feet long. It contained 150
pounds
of peanut butter and 50 pounds of jelly. It
was created November 6, 1993 in Peanut,
Pennsylvania.
Consumers
prefer creamy peanut butter to chunky by a 60%
to 40% ratio. Children and women
prefer
creamy, while most men opt for chunky.
Although
peanut butter is considered to be a kids' food,
adults actually eat more peanut butter
than
kids each year.
Folks
on the East coast prefer creamy peanut butter,
while those on the West Coast prefer the
chunky-style.
When
making a PB&J sandwich, 96% of people put
the peanut butter on before the jelly.
Peanut
butter is a good source of protein, folate (a
B-vitamin) niacin, phosphorus and
magnesium.
"Arachibutyrophobia" (pronounced
I-RA-KID-BU-TI-RO-PHO-BI-A) is the fear of peanut
butter
getting
stuck to the roof of your mouth.
Peanuts
are not a nut! Botanically classified as legumes,
peanuts contain properties of both the
bean/lentil
and tree nuts.
*Some facts reprinted
with permission from the Peanut Advisory Board.
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