Peanut Butter History
Posted by administrator1 on September 10th, 2009
The exact origins of peanut butter are cloudy at best, it has been documented that peanuts were ground into stews by the people of Africa as far back as the fifteenth century. Peanuts have been crushed into rich, smooth sauces by the Chinese for centuries. American civil war soldiers were known to serve up what can only be described as peanut porridge. These different types of early peanut butter however were nothing like our modern butters that we so readily consume today.
It has been recorded that back in 1890 a physician from St. Louis who has remains nameless allegedly asked the owner of a food produce business name George A. Bayle Jr. to create and sell a ground up peanut paste for people with poor dental hygiene; this was aimed at people who wouldn’t properly chew meat. Bayle Jr. went onto automate the process and started to sell this ‘peanut butter’ straight out of barrels for approximately 6 cents a pound. It was around this time that a Dr. John Harvey Kellogg from Michigan had been experimenting with a similar paste from his home in the small town of Battle Creek. This paste was given out for vegetarians as a source of protein. Kellogg also had a brother who was a business man, the pair teamed up and shortly after opened ‘Sanitas Nut Company’ who then supplied it to grocery shops in the local area.
By 1903 a Doctor by the name of George Washington Carver had thought up over three hundred uses for peanuts to go along with the already developed peanut butter paste, he is considered now by numerous people to be the father of the peanut industry. At the Universal Exposition in St. Louis in 1904, C.H. Sumner first introduced his own brand of peanut butter to the globe. He then went onto sell $705.11 worth of it at his refreshment stand; it would seem that peanut butter was directly on course to becoming American’s favorite.
The oldest known peanut company that is still in business today is Krema Products Company which was founded in Columbus, Ohio. Their particular brand of peanut went on sale in 1908. The founder of the company, Benton Black stuck to his roots and originally used the motto “I refuse to sell outside of Ohio.” As touching as this was for his local consumers it also had a practical origin as the produce would very quickly spoil inside the barrels and as a road system hadn’t been created Ohio really was the only place he could sell it.
Smoother peanut butter was being churned (compared with the usual gritty butters available at that time) by Joseph L. Rosefield from his company in California back in 1922, receiving the first ever patent for a peanut butter with a longer shelf life. The peanut butter he produced would stay fresh for approximately one year due to his unique treatment of it where the oil wouldn’t divide from the peanut butter.
The process was quickly adopted by Swift & Company for its E.K. Pond brand peanut butter which was renamed as Peter Pan by 1928. A dispute opened between Rosefield and Peter Pan but it was Rosefield that went on to create the first ever ‘crunchy style’ peanut butter which was produced by mixing the chopped peanuts into a creamy soft butter at the last stages of its production. It wasn’t until Procter & Gambled were introduced to the peanut world by their acquisition of W.T. Young Foods from Lexington in Kentucky. They were the creators of Big Top Peanut Butter. They also launched Jif by 1958 and have go on to own the world’s biggest ever peanut butter factory which manufactures over two hundred and fifty thousand jars each day.
