Is $3,7 USD for 340 grams/11.9 oz of "creamy" Skippy-brand peanut butter expensive from an American's perspective? [closed]

Question

Right now, in Sweden, a small-feeling 340 g (which is apparently 11.9 oz) jar of "Skippy creamy peanut butter" is, translated to current USD value, $3.7 USD. I think it has been around this price for a long time, and it's an expected standard price for something like that, given how much everything costs these days.

However, I have heard economic tips such as "use peanut butter and apple sauce on toast bread", which all seem to imply that this is a cheap and yet filling meal. However, considering how relatively little peanut butter is in such a jar, this sounds like it would quickly get expensive if eaten constantly, with Swedish prices. (And that apple sauce isn't free either...)

Apparently, it's "extra smooth", but I don't know if that is just part of the advertising slogan or actually a separate product, and if so, if this is some kind of unusually pricey version. It's the only peanut butter product sold here (except for the "crunchy" version of the same brand).

In the USA, is perhaps a larger can of peanut butter of this quality (whether that is low, medium or high, I cannot tell) far less expensive than my price for the small jar? I suspect this is the case.

Answer 1

You've got two or three factors jacking up the price from what you'd pay for peanut butter in the US, which is probably where most of those cheap meal suggestions come from.

First, Skippy is a highly-advertised brand name, so you if you buy it, you are paying for all the advertising.

Second, it's probably not made in Sweden but imported from the US, so you pay shipping costs and maybe import tariffs.

Third, it's been my experience that pretty much all food is more expensive in Europe than in the US.

Edit after visiting the grocery store: For comparison, an 18 oz/510 g jar* of store brand (WinCo) peanut butter* costs $1.64 at my local store. A close to the same size jar of Skippy Creamy peanut butter was $2.69, so you're paying about twice US price per oz/gram for the same brand, and over three times as much as for the store brand.

*This is the smallest size the store had, of either brand.

Answer 2

You careened out of your way to pick a bad product on several levels.

• It’s an American name and taste. Its target market is American expats and others with strong desire for the American “taste”, and so it commands a premium price.
• USA Skippy substitutes cheap oils for the peanut oil, uses HFCS instead of sugar, and uses GMO strains not yet certified in Europe. These and other issues would interfere with it being imported commercially into the EU. To satisfy demand, they (or likely, a partner) makes an EU-legal version flavored to taste about the same. That is a limited-run specialty product requiring a higher price.
• The taste is tuned for Americans’ sugar-heavy palate, which does not appeal to Europeans. Swedes surely have domestic or EU brands of peanut butter they prefer. You should price those.

Even in the US, Skippy asks a lot “for the name”. Target has a 16 ounce jar of Skippy for $2.29, but they also have an equivalent house-brand for $1.29. Target also has house-brand organics for $4 a jar, either a) stir-it (peanuts only, really), or b) no-stir (like Skippy, but it’s organic crud, and the sugar is dialed down to almost zero). That’s probably comparable to what Swedes eat.

So if you really want Skippy particularly, that’s an expensive choice. If money is a factor, don’t waste it on name-brands and full-retail groceries. In the US I would send you to Trader Joes or Aldi. (There may be Aldi there; it is German after all). And of course avail yourself of any government programs.

Also consider that COVID is affecting food supply, and I would think that’s especially true for oddball, import or boutique items.

Certainly your article is right that you can get a lot of food for very little money. However the advice of some of them is laughable; for instance filthy-rich Gwyneth Paltrow tried to design a month of attractive meals on a monthly food-stamp budget, and somehow had people buying 3 limes.

Applesauce seems like one of those; it’s expensive and the picture of empty calories. Cheap white bread (and “white” food generally) are also empty calories; they taste good but leave you hungry. Simply switching to whole wheat helps a lot: better for you and make you feel full.

Now if they’re going to P.B. for the protein, watch it - protein is not a single substance, it’s a variety, and they must be in the right proportions to be bodily useful, Red meat is ideal, but vegetables require combining in a particular way to get the benefit. Ask biologists or vegetarians.

Answer 3

I got some peanut butter recently and it was not nearly this expensive, so I took at look at what Walmart had. I found what looks like the exact sort you got for 2.36 USD:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Skippy-Creamy-Peanut-Butter-12-oz-Jar/191560633

You can find this brand cheaper by weight if you get larger jars or packs with more at a time. I would say 3.7 USD for the same jar is expensive for Skippy, let alone peanut butter in general.

There are also plenty of other options and brands, even in smaller stores. For example, here's a 64 ounce jar of Walmart's house brand for 5 USD:

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Great-Value-Creamy-Peanut-Butter-64-oz/47375932

Answer 4

Others have established that peanut butter is in fact less expensive in the US than in Sweden, and that is the question you explicitly asked. However, the context for your question was advice for eating cheaply. In order for peanut butter to be good advice in the US but not Sweden, the price of peanut butter relative to what it replaces would have to be less in the US. Here, 255g of pre-sliced roast turkey is $4. That's about 50% more expensive. I think this is the kind of comparison that the advice you see is making. If you are already cooking dried beans at maybe $1.50 for half a kg, then peanut butter is no bargain at all, in the US or Sweden.

Answer 5

Google tells me that 340g of peanut butter has eactly 2,000 calories. At 3.7 USD, this would be 540 calories per $.

As a comparison, for a 15.5 oz can of beans, there is about 682 calories. Per this Swedish grocery store website, it looks like you can get a can like this for between 8kr-12kr, (https://www.coop.se/globalt-sok/?query=b%C3%B6nor), which is about $.83 USD - $1.2 USD. This equals about 821-568 calories per $.

So peanut butter is about as expensive per calorie as 'higher end' can of beans. Perhaps you will tell me 'ah yes but beans are notoriously expensive in Sweden', at which point I shrug my shoulders. Peanut butter is cheap-ish in Sweden as a pure calorie source, but perhaps not the absolutely least expensive option possible.

Answer 6

$3.70 for an 11.9 oz jar is expensive. Where I live in the USA, a 16 oz jar costs a bit under $3.00

For most of my life I didn't care much for peanut butter. Then about 8 years ago a switch flipped and now, honey roasted creamy peanut butter is one of my biggest food vices. I like it in my protein shakes, on top of a protein bar, even straight up. The one thing that didn't work was peanut butter in my coffee. It's not miscible so I ended up with a bottom layer of molten peanut butter in my coffee cup! :-O

The 40 oz jars are much more cost efficient at a cost of $6 to $7 each. And given that it's a frequent buy one/get one free sale item, that further cuts the price in half.

Generic peanut butters are even less expensive but I'm kind of particular when it comes to molten peanut butter ;->)

Answer 7

At a bulk store such as Costco 2x 48oz (total 2.72kg) Jif or Skippy cheap brands cost about USD 10 so about 37 cents/100g, less on sale. No particular difference in price for creamy vs chunky.

Your price is 1.09/100g, so about 3x in nominal terms. Comparing the Big Mac Index, seems it is also similarly expensive in purchasing power terms.

That said, I don’t think it’s out of line for a small jar, perhaps purchased at a specialty store or a convenience store.

Mass-market peanut butter and (perhaps more importantly) low quality mass-market bread are very cheap in North America, so they make a meal that meets some nutritional requirements at low cost. Eggs are super-cheap protein as well, I’ve seen 20 cents total for 3 eggs in packs of 90 (though the production conditions are likely pretty horrific).

Personally, I pay (in Canada) similar to US price for peanut butter ~USD0.30/100g in a 2kg jar, but about USD 0.40 for two slices of artisanal bread, so a PB&J sandwich is probably in the US 1.00 range. If I used cheap bread and cheap jam it could be half that.

Anything that counts as a meal and is in the $1 range seems cheap to me- that is 1/2 or 1/3 average US spending (and there are many folks living on very low incomes in the US).

If you start adding requirements such as ‘organic’, prices can easily skyrocket since there are many, many people who can afford to pay a lot more.

Answer 8

A quick search for the price of a jar of peanut butter from Price Chopper (a common grocery store in America) shows a 16 oz jar of peanut butter can cost anywhere from $3.19 for Skippy (Actually 16.3 oz), or as low as $1.99 for store brand.

https://shop.pricechopper.com/shop/categories/92

These are not the only factors in deciding that peanut butter is an economic food though.

Consider also the cost of a jar of jam, which from the same search can go as low as $2.49 for 18 oz (assuming you don't want the even cheaper $1.99 jelly, which can be a little gross)

And for bread, a single loaf can be anywhere from $4.49 for high quality stuff, to $1.29 for the extremely cheap store-brand stuff.

https://shop.pricechopper.com/shop/categories/89

Even with the higher quality ingredients, if you add up $4.49, $2.49, and $3.19, you get $10.17.

For ingredients that can make around 8 to 10 sandwiches, depending on how many slices of bread you get in a loaf (and whether or not you use the heels of the bread).

So the real reason peanut butter is considered a 'cheap' food source isn't just the exact price, but the fact that it can be used multiple times with other relatively low-cost ingredients.

If you were to use the cheaper ingredients, the price for 10 of these sandwiches would be a mere $5.27.

Answer 9

This is, in my opinion, a very high price. At our local Sam's Club (discount "warehouse" store - sells larger quantities at (sometimes) lower prices - but not always - I've learned to watch them like a hawk and compare-compare-compare to my local supermarket) 96 ounces (2.72 kg) of Skippy creamy peanut butter is priced at $8.98.

Your 11.9 oz container at $3.70 comes out to about 31 cents-per-ounce.

The larger quantity (96 oz) at $8.98 comes out to about 9 cents-per-ounce.

Answer 10

You specifically picked 11.9 oz, which is a 'convenience size', not the bulk sizes, which are going to be priced more economically: 64oz/4lb and 5lb and twin-packs of 2x48oz

There is a well-known trend in US grocery retailing that 'convenience sizes' are priced at a premium, and you should avoid them if you can buy in bulk and store it (CostCo, Amazon, Walmart/Sam's Club, Smart & Final); this typically works in favor of families, homeowners and people with large houses and cars/minivans, and against single people/renters/people who have to share cupboards/fridges/freezers / people who live alone/convenience users.

If you plot the $/oz for prices from Amazon or Google Shopping for Skippy peanut butter, you will get a markedly non-linear curve: small sizes are uneconomical, larger are far better value.

Answer 11

I live in the U.S. My family likes peanut butter. We bought some just yesterday at Whole Foods Markets (owned by Amazon). WFM is a grocery store chain that emphasizes "healthy" food, although not everything they sell is "organic". I know they have some European presense, but I'm not sure about Sweden.

A WFM store typically has at least 3 grinding machines that look like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIFGIj6ma4g (someone's old YouTube video)

The usual choices are: organic peanuts, conventional (not organic) peanuts, and almonds. You press a button, the machine grinds its contents as you watch, and dispenses the fresh paste into a container. They are sold by weight. We paid $5.19 per pound of organic peanut butter (there's no sales tax, VAT, etc). That translates to $0.011442 per gram or $3.89 for 340 grams. Non-organic would have been a little cheaper.

I made me a sandwich earlier today that used maybe a tablespoon and a half of peanut butter - maybe $0.20 worth.

So, it sounds like the prices are comparable between WHM and your store, and given how "dense" it is, I don't think it's expensive.

As other answerers noted, there's a world of difference between freshly ground peanut butter (we try to eat it within a couple of weeks, otherwise it separates) and peanut butter in a jar. Not to pick on Skippy brand, but since you mentioned it, here are the ingredients:

It contains:

• roasted peanuts - good, that's what we want

• sugar - even if we assume it's real sugar from beets or cane, and not some kind of high-fructose corn syrup, there's no need to add any sweetener to peanut butter. The peanuts taste better without any sweetener.

• hydrogenated vegetable oil (cottonseed, soybean, rapeseed, or palm oil) - I prefer to avoid hydrogenated oil.

• salt - again, there's no reason to add salt to peanut butter.

As other mentioned, the label warns that it "may" contain GMO. I'm not paranoid about GMO, but I know there are no GMO peanuts on the market, so they must refer to the hydrogenated vegetable oil added to extend its shelf life.

My advice to you is to avoid peanut butter in a jar if you can find it fresh instead. It does taste better.