Nutritious Nut to Delicious Peanut Butter

Peanuts were known as early as 950 B.C. and originated in South America. The ancient Incas used peanuts and made it into a paste-like substance. Peanuts emigrated from South America to Africa by early explorers and then traveled by trade into Spain who then traded the product to the American colonies. The first american commercial peanut crop was grown in Virginia in the early to mid 1840’s and in North Carolina beginning around 1818.

In 1985, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented a “Process of Preparing Nut Meal” and used peanuts. Kellogg served the patients at his Battle Creek Sanitarium peanut butter. Joseph Lambert worked for Dr. Kellogg and began selling his own hand-operated peanut butter grinder in 1896. In 1899, Almeeta Lambert published the first nut cookbook, “The Complete Guide to Nut Cookery”.

In 1903, Agricultural chemist, Dr. George Washington Carver, began his peanut research at Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama. While peanut butter had already been developed by then, Dr. Carver discovered more than three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes.

He start popularizing uses for peanut products including peanut butter, paper, ink, and oils beginning in 1880. Carver did not patent peanut butter as he believed food products were all gifts from God.

The 1880 date precedes all the above inventors except of course for the Incas, who were first. It was Carver who made peanuts a significant crop in the American South in the early 1900’s. After all peanut butter is just roasted peanuts crushed into a paste. One-half of all edible peanuts produced in the United States are used to make peanut butter and peanut spreads.

C.H. Sumner was the first to introduce peanut butter to the world at the Universal Exposition of 1904 in St. Louis. He sold $705.11 of the treat at his concession stand and peanut butter was on its way to becoming an American favorite!

Krema Products Company in Columbus, Ohio began selling peanut butter in 1908 ~ and is the oldest peanut butter company still in operation today.

By 1914, many companies were making peanut butter.

Joseph L. Rosenfield invented a churning process that made smooth peanut butter smooth. In 1928, Rosenfield licensed his invention to the Pond Company, the makers of Peter Pan peanut butter. In 1932, Rosenfield began making his own brand of peanut butter called Skippy which included a crunchy style peanut butter.

In 1955, Procter & Gamble entered the peanut butter business by acquiring W.T. Young Foods in Kentucky, makers of Big Top Peanut Butter. They introduced Jif in 1958 and now operate the world’s largest peanut butter plant, churning out 250,000 jars every day.

Americans now eat about 3 pounds of peanut butter per person each year, totaling about 500 million pounds!

Read More:

National Peanut Board “The History of the Peanut”