All peanut butter makers paying price for outbreak

Sales have plummeted despite safety assurances.

Last update: February 8, 2009 - 10:30 AM

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Many consumers, apparently disregarding the fine print of the salmonella outbreak and food recall caused by a Georgia peanut plant, are swearing off all brands of peanut butter, driving down sales by nearly 25 percent.

The drop-off is so striking that brands such as Jif are taking the unusual step of buying ads to tell shoppers that their products are not affected, and giving them a coupon to make sure they do not learn to live without a staple that almost every child loves -- and more than a few of their parents, too.

Given the steady stream of headlines since mid-January about one of the largest food contamination scares in the nation's history, the companies whose products are not being recalled could have a difficult time winning over people like Guadalupe Vasquez.

On Friday, she and her three young children kept walking past shelves of peanut butter at a grocery store in Bellaire, Texas. "The news shows say don't buy it and I won't buy it," said Vasquez, adding that she normally buys a jar each week. "I'm very fearful of salmonella."

The J.M. Smucker Co., which makes Jif, placed ads in newspapers across the country on Friday that said the company did not buy peanuts from the Peanut Corp. of America, whose plant in Blakely, Ga., was found to be the source of the outbreak.

"Obviously this has had a very negative impact on the industry," said Maribeth Badertscher, a spokeswoman for Jif.

ConAgra Foods, the maker of Peter Pan peanut butter, is planning to run a similar newspaper ad today, along with a 50-cent coupon.

The contaminated peanut butter traced to the Georgia plant represents a small percentage of the $800 million in annual sales by the peanut butter companies in the United States. But the industry's public relations problem is unlikely to ease anytime soon.

While market research firms show more than a 20 percent drop in sales, their numbers reflect only the first few weeks of the outbreak.

NEW YORK TIMES

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