The United States is a peanut butter powerhouse, doubling its exports since 2009, says the latest issue of the USDA’s Oilseeds: World Markets and Trade report. “The United States has always been a major player in global peanut butter trade and continues to be the world’s largest exporter,” says USDA. “Over the past six years, the U.S. share of global trade … has risen from 45 percent to 55 percent in a market that has grown more than 60 percent over the same period. The exports last year equaled 105,000 tonnes of peanuts in the shell, assuming it takes two kilograms of peanuts to make one kilogram of peanut butter.
China is the second-largest exporter of peanut putter, with about 35 percent of the world market. Since 2010, Chinese exports have been relatively flat due to growing internal demand for peanut butter and peanut oil, opening the door for more U.S. exports, says USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. “In fact, the entire growth in global peanut butter demand since 2010 has been supplied by U.S. products.”
U.S. growers harvested 6.2 billion pounds of peanuts last year. Peanut butter exports are “a small but important conduit by which U.S. peanuts enter the global market,” says USDA.