Food Roulette

Food & Drink

Apparently, Jif Peanut Butter has been “recalled” by its parent company (who knew?):

The J. M. Smucker Co. is recalling select Jif® peanut butter products sold in the U.S. due to potential Salmonella contamination. Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.

The recalled peanut butter was distributed nationwide in retail stores and other outlets. Recalled products include the products below with lot codes 1274425 – 2140425. Lot codes are included alongside best-if-used-by date.

Not wanting to deal with salmonella — take it from me, I grew up in Africa, and it’s fucking wicked shit — I inspected the peanut butter supply chez  du Toit (including the emergency hoard).

Every single jar we have falls into the fucking suspect lot code range.  What’s just as interesting is that one of the jars is half-empty, i.e. New Wife and I have been feasting on the lovely stuff for about a month already on our weekend breakfast toast.  With, of course, no ill effects… so far.

Needless to say, the supermarket shelves are already empty of all Jif products, having sent them back to the manufacturer for a refund.

Now:  are said supermarket companies going to refund We The Consumers if we take our unopened jars of Jif à la salmonella  back?

Don’t be silly.  (I tried yesterday, at both Kroger and Sam’s Club and was told to fuck off.  (Not quite what was said, but the outcome was the same nevertheless.)

Maybe if I open-carried my 1911 into Tom Thumb tomorrow, they’ll at least give me a decent hearing?

Watch this space.

23 comments

  1. Most of my “emergency” peanut butter supply is in those little foil and plastic MRE pouches. The jalapeno cheese spread is better but both are reasonably edible on the old hard tack military crackers. Expiration dates? Some of my hard tack has “Beat the kaiser” stamped on it.

  2. I have 8 or 10 of the really big jars, guess I need to check the dates. Costco has promised to reimburse me, we’ll see how that works. The email I got stated to just throw them away and then come to the store for a refund. Hmmm.

    Funny how the one major good item (that I know everyone in the household will eat) that I bought in bulk for the upcoming food-apocalypse is now the subject of a recall. That, along with a lot of suspicious fires at food packaging warehouses, farmers plowing crops under during Covid, and meat packing plants shutdown and/or bought by the Chinks, makes the conspiracy theories of the last several years look dull by comparison.

  5. I did notice on the national snooze that Smuckers told their customers who bought the peanut butter in question to toss it out, rather than return it. Good marketyploy if it doesn’t alienate their customers.

  6. Time to find a good peanut-butter cookie recipe maybe? Salmonella probably wouldn’t survive being well baked.

  7. Costco sent me a text Saturday night to let me know of the recall. Apparently that’s where I bought my last jar of the peanut butter death spread.

  8. Had salmonella once, long ago (my mother was alive, and she died on this very date in 1990). Got it from a Boston Cream donut at Dunkin. Still won’t eat them (but will from a trusted bakery, but even that took a decade or so). My wife often notes that I’m insane when it comes to food contamination, that’s why.

    Oh, good to be able to comment again.

    Mark D

  9. Brother Kim, you & I live in the land of the HEB brands. I stay away as much as possible from national brands. HEB makes good copies of most of em.

  10. We had one large unopened jar of the stuff with the number on it that means it might be messed up, I don’t want to get any kind of food poisoning so I chunked it. Our current open jar is a different brand.

  11. My local grocery store (Publix) let me return three 40oz. jars of Jif, one of which was half eaten. And Peter Pan 40oz jars were BOGO, so I came home with six.

    My wife and daughter are absolute fiends for peanut butter.

  12. Personally, I can’t stand peanut paste (it’s not butter!), I much prefer Vegemite (which I know Americans hate), but … a food recall like that here means we take it back for a full refund. No ifs, buts or maybes.

  13. Next it’ll be Skippy, my brand since I was a kid stuffing PB & J sandwiches (on Wonder bread) into my rucksack and going fishing.

  14. Not a big peanut butter guy. But I have it around as a standby.

    If the diet has me ravenous mid afternoon, I’ll make a PB sammich.

    Looked at my tub yesterday – Jif. But it’s not the bad batch. Whatever, I’ve already eaten half of it without effect. I’d probably still eat it if it were part of the recall. The net they cast is superwide. It may have been one or two jars that had the issue and could’ve been caused by someone mishandling their own. Who knows. I like my odds.

    1. I will say that every time I’ve gotten food poisoning, it’s from a hotel restaurant, usually the breakfast bar. I’ll qualify it further – a hotel with the big setup in the morning – not like a courtyard or residence inn. Like flagship ones – Wynn, Omni, etc.

  15. Very different to the UK where food is generally recalled with full refunds given.

  16. Thanks for the heads up. Both Jiff jars I have have a lot number of 695####. They were purchased at a military commissary about 9 months ago.

    1. So you get to wait until the same brand and size is on the supermarket shelves again.

  18. I checked the open jar. It is not in the recall range. Then I looked for the extra jars, and to my horror found none. Must rectify that.

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