Wanted: Peanut Butter

About a month ago, someone mentioned to me that there seemed to be a shortage of peanut butter amongst the aisles of Bangsar supermarkets. I thought she was joking (or merely indicating selectiveness with her choice of acceptable peanut butter which she did say, she only bought US made peanut butter). So I trawled the supermarket that week - I am a supermarket junkie so 3 times is a minimum requirement for my week to go by without me going insane.

I found peanut butter Made in the USA. (shall not go into the whole crunchy vs smooth debate)

So I thought nothing of the 'shortage' story.

But I have noticed that there are fewer and fewer jars of it in the supermarket aisles. Today, I'm trawling the aisles of Bangsar Shopping Center and...wait a minute. Where's all the peanut butter? You've got your PB and every kind of J possible (strawberry jelly, blueberry jelly, nutella) but no straight peanut butter.

Now of course, when I say NO peanut butter, I mean no quality peanut butter. There were a couple of jars of some brand I don't recognise. But the bold 'Made in China' label was enough to make me throw it back to the shelf like it was a pin-less grenade. I've recently just realised a jar of Skippy in the office says 'Made under license for Unilever in Shandong'. Gulp. And so that's made me a lot more vigilant about inspecting the peanut butter labels.



I might add, the jars of Lady's Choice had the 'Shandong Islamic Council' stamp proudly adhered to them. Which basically means, MADE IN CHINA.

Since the whole melamine in dog-food scandal broke out, I've consciously attempted to avoid buying anything that I feel is dodgy and the dodgyness score rises the minute it says 'Made in China'. You cannot trust those people to make anything that is edible. They are great for everything else that is inedible. But anything that goes on human skin, or goes into a human stomach, forget it.

The 'Made in China' confession is one of the reasons why for the longest time, I stopped eating Snicker Bars, eventhough I love them. I was inspecting the labels (something which I've done since 2005 after reading a book about how chicken in Sainsbury's supermarkets originates from Thailand) and realised that Snickers were made in Beijing under license there. Which put me on alert. Even if all the ingredients are imported in (and honestly, why would an MNC do that? The whole point of outsourcing manufacturing is to reduce cost and if you can localise the incredients, that cuts cost even more) I still don't trust the Chinese manufacturers not to try and cut corners. And I've done so eventhough Mars (the maker of Snickers) took out an ad in the local papers recently to say their product is melamine free. It's all the other stuff that I'm not happy about and lord knows, there could be other stuff other than melamine that's in the food chain.

Back to the peanut butter story.

A cousin has for awhile been abstaining from peanut butter as she couldn't find anything not made in China. Bangsar Village brought in stock of fantastic natural peanut butter made by Skippy (and made in the USA - okay, maybe peanuts from China possible). It spread like commercial peanut butter, but was less fake tasting, and had a distinct natural peanut butter flavour (I have eaten natural PB - it's...okay). It ran out so fast and has never been brought in again. Perhaps it cost too much.

So I have been on the search for Made in USA peanut butter for a while now.Which was why I thought I'd check the BSC aisles. And I even checked every one of the extra display aisles where they sometimes stock special stuff. Nada. Not a smidgen.

The ever so helpful staff says whatever is in the aisle, is all they have got (see pix below)


Deliveries apparently have stopped for over a month from Skippy. What's going on? Is it because Skippy is trying to clean out their made in China/Shandong inventory or even better, has chucked the entire lot and decided to bring some in from the USA? What will become of my diet Waterloo, Toastbox, where the tasty Peanut Thick Toast is made from a mix of Skippy and Lady's Choice peanut butter? (yeah, sneaky but that's how they 'economise' on ingredients! Mix the good with the average).