People Feeling Nutty Again After Outbreak

Abilene Reporter-News (TX)

November 17, 2009

People whose business it is to put peanut products on your table have an extra good reason to celebrate National Peanut Butter Lovers Month in November.

The industry looks for better days after a body blow dealt about a year ago, when a salmonella outbreak began, eventually claiming at least nine lives and sickening many hundreds, if not thousands, across the country. “I guess the good part of the story is, compared to last year, we’ve had a significant increase in sales,” said Shelly Nutt, executive director of the Texas Peanut Producers Board.

Whether the rebound is more from consumers’ redeveloping their confidence in peanut products or from the replenishment of supplies after throwing away peanut products that government regulators warned might be tainted, Nutt wasn’t sure. But, she added, “We’re glad people are back and buying.”

The sluggish economy may also contribute significantly to rebounding peanut butter sales, Nutt said, adding that peanut butter is a relatively inexpensive alternative to meat, which appeals not only to the cost-conscious in lean economic times. Many vegetarians also see peanut butter as a must for people who don’t eat meat.

Still, the hard times that set in a year ago are lasting, Nutt said. A perfect storm brewed from low prices—related to an oversupply of peanuts in 2008—combined with a bad drought this year and the salmonella outbreak, she said. In 2010, Nutt hopes for peanut growers to benefit from maintaining demand and increasing prices.

Larry Don Womack, who farms in Comanche County and is a member of the Texas Peanut Producers Board, didn’t find it worthwhile to plant the small legume crop this year. “The contract price was down due to oversupply (in 2008),” Womack explained. “In our area, it just wasn’t feasible to grow (peanuts).”

The salmonella contamination occurred in the processing of peanut products, not the growing of the goobers in the field. Peanut butter sold to institutions such as long-term care facilities, rather than sold directly to consumers in jars stocked on food store shelves, was implicated. But other peanut-based consumer products, such as cookies, were found to contain salmonella and were part of one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history.

Plants in Suffolk, VA, Blakely, GA, and Plainview, TX, were closed because of unsanitary conditions after products from the three plants were linked to the salmonella outbreak. The plants were all owned by Stewart Parnell, president and CEO of Peanut Corporation of America, based in Lynchburg, VA.

Parnell is the son of Hugh Parnell, former owner of Parnell’s Peanuts in Gorman, TX. The plant closed in 1999 after being sold. The closure was part of a general decline in the peanut processing industry in the area, which mirrored a decline in the area’s cultivation of peanuts in the field.

PCA filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the aftermath, and a number of lawsuits were filed against PCA. The window for filing claims in the bankruptcy case on behalf of people harmed by the salmonella closed Oct. 31.

Also, U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) asked the U.S. Department of Justice to look into the possibility that criminal charges may be warranted for failure to prevent contamination. Last week, a spokesman for Leahy said that to his knowledge, no criminal charges have been filed.