We sure do love our peanut butter here in the ol' U.S. of A. One article I recently read stated that we eat more than 700 MILLION pounds of it a year!
And we have very strong opinions about it too. We all have our favorite brand, and it seems it's usually the one we grew up on - almost as if our preference for one peanut butter over another seeps into our DNA somehow.
Reviews and peanut butter taste tests are all over the internet, and have been a staple in newspapers and magazines for decades. There are even entire blogs dedicated to peanut butter!
It's no wonder I was so hesitant to try the peanut butter from Aldi. In fact I had been shopping at Aldi for probably 2 years or more before I mustered enough courage to give Aldi's Berryhill brand peanut butter a try.
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| Berryhill Creamy Peanut Butter |
And as it turns out, I needn't have bothered. I didn't care for this one at all. It was smooth enough, but it just didn't have that fresh peanut taste that I was after. The store brand at the other grocery store I go to here is better, AND it's usually priced 20 cents a jar less.
So, sorry Aldi, you lose this one.
HOWEVER... here's something I found that I DO like -
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| Berryhill Natural Creamy Peanut Spread |
To me, this one tastes MUCH more like fresh peanuts and is every bit as smooth as the peanut butter I grew up on.
At first, it bothered me a little that they call this peanut SPREAD, and not peanut BUTTER, so I did a little research. It turns out there are government standards about what defines peanut butter. I won't bore you with all the details - you can read a document from the FDA here - but basically, the regulation is, the product must contain a certain percentage of peanuts to be called "butter", and if it doesn't, it has to be called something else.
Now, this is no big deal to me, but it might matter to some. I like the taste and consistency, so this one ends up in my cart on a pretty regular basis.
What about you? If you liked the taste, would it matter to you that this has to be called peanut spread, and not peanut butter? Would it cause you to NOT try it?
Let me know in the comments!
-Jeff the Aldi Shopper
Up until a year or more ago, Aldi carried a truly natural peanut butter (just peanuts and salt) for 1.99/jar. I was heartbroken when they stopped carrying it due to low sales nationwide. The natural 'peanut butter spread' has most of the peanut oil extracted and replaced with a less healthy fat (likely palm oil) which has an equivalent saturation to beef lard. I know your blog doesn't focus on those aspects necessarily, but considering how many millions of pounds of PB Americans eat each year - we should educate ourselves on the processing of one of our favorite foods! Great blog! Keep it up!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment! I certainly hope that Aldi tries offering the real natural peanut butter again in the future - with increasing consumer education and demand on a wider scale, I would think that they would respond.
ReplyDeleteI'm encouraged that they keep introducing healthier options, but I am getting a little impatient waiting for them to stock whole-wheat flour...
With all the recent peanut butter recalls. Can you tell me where Aldi's peanut butter is made and WHO makes it for them. Thank you, Ken
ReplyDeleteGood question, Ken - I don't know! There is a lot of speculation and guessing going on about who actually manufactures ALDI products, but ALDI doesn't officially release that info as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteAs long as this tastes like something I can swallow and keep down, I will buy and eat it. I have never had any issues with store bought foods, so I am sure I will be satisfied. It would not matter what the label says, as long as it is the product I am buying. Less peanuts, doesn't matter, Spread, not butter, doesn't matter. There is only one product I will never buy, apple juice from concentrate. I do not want to buy 90% water and some filler substance. I want the apple cider(I think is the right name) to be cloudy, full of crushed apples, nothing else.
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