Prices, Marketing Margins, and Uses of Peanuts in Peanut Butter

Excerpts from the report: This study of returns from marketing peanuts in peanut butter has been made in response to the continued and growing interest of consumers and public and private agencies in farmers' returns and marketing margins for agricultural products. This is one of several studies of farm-to-retail price spreads for important food products by the Economic Research Service as a part of a broad program of research on the economics of marketing agricultural commodities. During the 1961-62 marketing year, 4.5 pounds of raw shelled peanuts per person were processed for food, excluding shelled peanuts crushed for oil. Of this amount, about 2.5 pounds per person, or over 451.0 million pounds, were used in the manufacture of peanut butter. The objectives of this study were to measure and summarize returns to farmers for peanuts used in peanut butter and to various processing and marketing agencies for manufacturing and distributing peanut butter to consumers under different market situations. The analyses delineate variations in marketing margins or price spreads associated with type of retail outlet, brand, market location, and size of container