After the salmonella scare at the start of the year, sales of jarred peanut butter took a hit as consumers tried to determine which products were affected.  Last month, sales returned to their normal historical patterns, a trend that continued in the most recent four week period tracked by Nielsen.  On an equivalized unit volume basis, sales were up 3 percent from the same period in 2008 and down 1 percent from the previous four week period in 2009 – a trend Nielsen has seen in previous years.  Sales rose …

The peanut butter salmonella contamination earlier this year – which caused several fatalities – not surprisingly caused a dip in the sales of the product.  But now that the situation has subsided, sales of jarred peanut butter have returned to normal patterns.  For the four-week period ended April 18th, sales rose 2.7 percent over the previous four-week period, and were up 10.7 percent over the same period a year ago.
“The fact is that the contamination was limited to one supplier, and none of the big name brands were affected.  Consumers …

Following Sunday’s spike in conversations surrounding the swine flu outbreak, web chatter doubled on Monday, April 27. Nearly four percent of blogs, micro-blogs such as Twitter, web news and forums were related to “swine flu.” Already, by start of business on Tuesday in the U.S., the number had swelled to nearly six percent.

As reports of the swine flu outbreak reached beyond Mexican borders and into the U.S. late last week, the internet has been buzzing furiously about risks, symptoms, and other updates for information. By comparison, the volume of conversations about the epidemic have already exceeded nearly 10 to 1 those surrounding the salmonella and peanut butter scares from earlier this winter… or, to put it in another cultural perspective, the chatter about swine flu even dwarfs that of recent viral media star Susan Boyle.

The increased conversations around swine flu on Twitter, …

Even though news of the peanut butter salmonella outbreak has subsided, peanut butter sales continue to decline.
During the four-week period ending February 21, 2009, sales of jarred peanut butter fell to $87.2 million, down 2.3 percent from the same period in 2008.  41.8 million pounds of jarred peanut butter was sold during the current four-week period, down 13.3 percent for the same period a year ago.  Pounds sold is at the lowest point of the three-year span Nielsen has tracked the total U.S. Food/Drug/Mass (including Walmart) Stores channel.
“While most brands …

With a reported eight deaths and several hundred others sickened, the peanut butter salmonella outbreak is among the most serious food safety crisis in recent years.  It is not surprising that sales of peanut butter has dropped off in the last four weeks.
Nielsen tracks sales of a variety of peanut products at thousands of food, drug and mass merchandise stores (excluding Walmart) across the country. Here are the facts:

Nearly $32 million worth of prepackaged peanuts, including bags, cans, jars and …

As part of Nielsen’s kickoff presentation to the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) research summit, Nielsen Online presented two Brand Association Maps (BAM) illustrating how consumers’ online conversations have affected peanut butter in the wake of a nationwide Salmonella scare. What’s clear in looking at the pre- and post-event BAM maps is that online conversations about peanut butter soured very quickly. Once the first FDA report alerted consumers to salmonella-tainted peanut butter, online buzz tripled in a few short hours. Moreover, discussion was dispersed …