Name: 美國人為何這麼愛「花生醬」？ (Why Americans Are Obsessed With Peanut Butter)
Uploaded: 2024-12-05T21:01:50.000Z
Duration: 14 min 2 s

From children, to astronauts, to soldiers, to presidents, peanut butter's popularity has transcended time and literally space, reigning supreme as one of America's favorite staples and cementing its legacy as a mainstay in the minds and stomachs of millions for more than a hundred years.

從兒童、太空人、阿兵哥到總統，花生醬的受歡迎程度已經超越了時間和空間，成為美國人最喜愛的主食之一，並在 100 多年的時間裡鞏固了其在數百萬人心目中和胃中的地位。

關係子句

During difficult times, you tend to go back to something that makes you, that gives you comfort, and peanut butter is the ultimate comfort food in America.

在困難時期，你往往會回到能讓你感到舒適的東西上，而花生醬是美國人的終極舒適食品。

While the price of commodities as a whole have steadily increased over the past 20 years, peanut butter's average price has remained relatively stable, costing about 20 cents a serving in 2023.

在過去 20 年裡，商品的整體價格穩步上升，而花生醬的平均價格卻保持相對穩定，到 2023 年，每份花生醬的價格約為 20 美分。

And for such an old product, it's constantly being reinvented.

對於這樣一款古老的產品來說，它還在不斷創新。

Candies, snacks, and even the classic PB&J.

糖果、零食，甚至是經典的 PB&J。

這是一個價值 20 億美元的產業。

It's a 90% household penetration per day.

Its unique taste, smell, and texture are unforgettable.

其獨特的口感、氣味和質地令人難忘。

I have since I was a kid, like peanut butter and jellies.

Typical comfort is both PB&J, but I will do peanut butter and honey.

典型的舒適食物是 PB&J，但我也會吃花生醬和蜂蜜。

不過，花生醬從來都不是自己吃的。

My mom would pack my brother and I lunches every single day, and, you know, there are two of us, we're twins, so the easiest thing she could make for us would be PB&J sandwiches, and I probably had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich every day, year-round.

我媽媽每天都會給我和弟弟準備午餐，我們有兩個人，是雙胞胎，所以她給我們做的最簡單的東西就是 PB&J 三明治，我可能全年每天都吃花生醬果凍三明治。

It's personal in a way, reporting on the nostalgia and thinking about my own childhood and all the times I eat it and maybe thinking a little bit about why I might like peanut butter as much as I do.

從某種程度上說，這是我的個人喜好，我懷念過去，回想自己的童年，回想我吃花生醬的那些時光，也許我還會想一想，為什麼我會這麼喜歡花生醬。

This is one of America's most popular brands, Skippy's Peanut Butter Factory in Little Rock, Arkansas.

這是美國最受歡迎的品牌之一，位於阿肯色州小石城的 Skippy's 花生醬工廠。

Americans bought almost 800 million pints of peanut butter in 2022 alone, up 2.2% from the year prior.

僅在 2022 年，美國人就購買了近 8 億品脫花生醬，比前一年增長了 2.2%。

Something naturally just causing us to never tire of the taste and the flavor of peanut butter.

花生醬的味道和香味自然讓我們百吃不厭。

In fact, 2022 was an all-time record in peanut butter consumption in America.

事實上，2022 年美國的花生醬消費量創下了歷史新高。

Total revenue from peanut butter sales surpassed $2 billion in 2022, up 8.7% from 2021.

2022 年，花生醬銷售總收入超過 20 億美元，比 2021 年增長 8.7%。

But the top three brands are Jiff, Skippy, and Peter Pan.

但排名前三的品牌是 Jiff、Skippy 和 Peter Pan。

The Jam Smucker Company, which owns Jiff, released its most recent quarterly earnings in June.

擁有 Jiff 的 Jam Smucker 公司於 6 月份發佈了最近一個季度的財報。

The company says, despite a peanut butter recall, net sales of consumer foods, the category the snack falls under, increased by 14%.

該公司稱，儘管發生了花生醬召回事件，但該零食所屬的消費食品類的淨銷售額增長了 14%。

Growth from this section, the biggest among the company's three U.S. retail segments, lifted the company's overall net sales in the quarter by 10%, to $2.24 billion.

在公司的三個美國零售部門中，該部門的增長幅度最大，使公司本季度的整體淨銷售額增長了 10%，達到 22.4 億美元。

The largest portion of our growth within consumer foods has definitely been on Uncrustables business.

在我們的消費食品業務中，最大的增長部分無疑是酥脆食品業務。

We're projecting to build Uncrustables to a billion-dollar brand.

我們計劃將 Uncrustables 打造成價值十億美元的品牌。

It will become the largest brand within our consumer foods portfolio.

它將成為我們消費食品組合中最大的品牌。

Its stock price reached an all-time high of about $163 in January.

其股價在 1 月份達到約 163 美元的歷史新高。

On the other hand, stock in Hormel Foods, which owns peanut butter brands Skippy and Justin's, has had a slow start in 2023.

另一方面，擁有花生醬品牌 Skippy 和 Justin's 的荷美爾食品公司的股票在 2023 年開局不利。

Though Hormel Foods' overall net sales declined by 4% in 2023's second quarter, compared to the same quarter a year prior, Skippy, among other brands, grew.

儘管荷美爾食品公司 2023 年第二季度的整體淨銷售額與上年同期相比下降了 4%，但 Skippy 和其他品牌的銷售額卻有所增長。

Though peanut butter titans Skippy and Jiff are indomitable, there's a clear piece of the metaphorical peanut butter pie that's cut out for other competitors.

雖然花生醬巨頭 Skippy 和 Jiff 是不屈不撓的，但在比喻花生醬的餡餅中，其他競爭者顯然也有一席之地。

When you lump in the top three brands plus private label, you're capturing 85% plus of the peanut butter category.

如果把前三大品牌加上自有品牌放在一起，就能佔據花生醬品類 85% 以上的份額。

That 22% of the category that is private label, that's fairly comparable with other main lines in our store category.

22% 的品類是自有品牌，這與我們商店品類中的其他主線相當。

So kind of an average level of market share for those store brands and private label brands.

是以，這些商店品牌和自有品牌的市場份額處於平均水平。

Experts disagree who exactly founded peanut butter, but most credit farmers in the South who began grinding up their peanut crops into a paste in the 1800s.

專家們對花生醬究竟是由誰創立的意見不一，但大多數人認為是南方的農民在 19 世紀開始把花生作物磨成糊狀。

People have been growing peanuts for thousands of years.

幾千年來，人們一直在種植花生。

And the idea that nobody rounded it up into a paste until 1894 is probably beggar's belief.

而直到 1894 年才有人把它磨成漿糊的說法，恐怕是匪夷所思。

If you couldn't ship it long distances, you couldn't store it, it would go bad pretty quickly.

如果不能長途運輸，不能儲存，很快就會壞掉。

So hydrogenation is really the key to peanut butter becoming a mass market phenomenon.

是以，氫化確實是花生醬成為大眾市場現象的關鍵。

The first major brand to commercially develop peanut butter was actually Peter Pan in 1920.

第一個商業化開發花生醬的大品牌其實是 1920 年的彼得潘。

Peter Pan is the peanut butter eater's peanut butter.

彼得-潘是花生醬食客的花生醬。

Joseph Rosefield, later Skippy's founder, was working with the company for a while.

約瑟夫-羅斯菲爾德（Joseph Rosefield），也就是後來 Skippy's 的創始人，曾在公司工作過一段時間。

他有一項專利，而這正是彼得-潘所需要的。

And at some point he had a falling out with Peter Pan.

在某個時刻，他和彼得-潘鬧翻了。

So he yanked his patent, he created Skippy.

於是他取消了專利，創造了 Skippy。

He started making that in the garage of his home in Alameda.

他在阿拉米達家中的車庫裡開始製作。

Skippy was founded in 1933 and Jif in 1958.

Skippy 成立於 1933 年，Jif 成立於 1958 年。

Despite it being the last to launch, Jif has held the title of the most popular peanut butter brand in the U.S. since 1980, when it snatched the lead from Skippy.

儘管 Jif 是最晚推出的花生醬品牌，但自 1980 年從 Skippy 手中奪走美國最受歡迎花生醬品牌的頭銜以來，Jif 一直保持著這一頭銜。

This, partially due to a successful marketing campaign by Procter & Gamble, who owned Jif at the time.

這部分歸功於當時擁有 Jif 的寶潔公司成功的營銷活動。

Isn't that the peanut butter you want for your family?

這不就是你想給家人吃的花生醬嗎？

We have held the position, the number one position now for multiple decades.

幾十年來，我們一直佔據著第一的位置。

It's definitely by keeping the consumer at the heart of everything that we're doing.

我們所做的一切都是以消費者為中心。

But peanut butter's ubiquitous presence in society was solidified during the Great Depression, when its use as a cheap sandwich filling as an alternative to meat became widespread, and World War II, when it was included as part of soldiers' food rations.

但是，花生醬在社會中無處不在的地位在大蕭條時期得到了鞏固，當時花生醬作為肉類替代品的廉價三明治餡料得到了廣泛使用，而在第二次世界大戰期間，花生醬被列為阿兵哥口糧的一部分。

All the American soldiers who had peanut butter in their rations in World War II, who hadn't previously eaten or experienced it, you know, became fond of it and came home and started eating it and sharing it with your families.

在第二次世界大戰中，所有口糧中有花生醬的美國士兵以前都沒有吃過或體驗過花生醬，你知道，他們開始喜歡上花生醬，回家後開始吃花生醬，並與家人分享。

Though originally family-owned, Skippy was bought by Best Foods in 1955 and later acquired by Unilever in 2000.

Skippy 最初是家族企業，1955 年被 Best Foods 收購，後於 2000 年被聯合利華收購。

Most recently, Hormel Foods, predominantly known for meat products like Spam, purchased the legendary brand in 2013 for $700 million.

最近，以生產 Spam 等肉製品而聞名的荷美爾食品公司（Hormel Foods）於 2013 年以 7 億美元的價格收購了這一傳奇品牌。

There was a lot of untapped opportunity with this brand.

這個品牌有很多尚未開發的機會。

We have the opportunity to really put a focus on it and really figure out what is it that makes this brand special and what's going to help it to grow into the future.

我們有機會真正關注它，真正弄清楚是什麼讓這個品牌與眾不同，是什麼將幫助它在未來發展壯大。

Now, non-meat proteins make up about 25% of Hormel's total portfolio.

現在，非肉類蛋白質約佔荷美爾總產品組合的 25%。

The company acquired Justin's in 2016 and Planter's in 2021.

公司於 2016 年收購了 Justin's，並於 2021 年收購了 Planter's。

That was a real pivot for Hormel into kind of a non-meat center-of-store product to help evolve the company into a more consumer, product-facing company.

這對荷美爾來說是一個真正的轉捩點，使其成為一種非肉類的店面中心產品，幫助公司發展成為一個更面向消費者、更面向產品的公司。

They hold near 20% of the market share today behind that Skippy brand.

如今，在 Skippy 品牌背後，他們佔據了近 20% 的市場份額。

And growth has been consistent with the category since they acquired it.

自收購以來，該產品類別一直保持增長。

Skippy follows consumer spending habits to cash in on other peanut butter endeavors.

Skippy 遵循消費者的消費習慣，在其他花生醬業務中套現。

That $2 billion industry I mentioned earlier?

我之前提到的那個價值 20 億美元的產業？

Yeah, that's just spreadable peanut butter.

Consumers are looking for new ways to get peanut butter, not just out of the jar, but in other products as well.

消費者正在尋找新的花生醬食用方法，不僅是罐裝花生醬，還包括其他產品。

So think about baked goods and snacks, ice cream, cereal, all the different places that people enjoy peanut butter today.

是以，想想烘焙食品、零食、冰淇淋、麥片，如今人們在不同的地方都能吃到花生醬。

So there's opportunities for us as a brand to tap into some of those spaces as well and expand and find new areas of growth for this brand.

是以，作為一個品牌，我們也有機會涉足這些領域，為這個品牌拓展和尋找新的增長點。

But Skippy, or Hormel, has major competition.

但是，Skippy 和 Hormel 都有很大的競爭對手。

Smucker's owns and operates the Uncrustables brand, frozen, pre-made PB&J-style sandwiches that have helped the company grow exponentially since that brand was acquired in 1998.

Smucker's 擁有並經營著 Uncrustables 品牌，這種預製 PB&J 型冷凍三明治自 1998 年被收購以來，幫助公司實現了飛速發展。

You have this product expansion into Uncrustables frozen sandwiches that's just been on fire for them and growing very strongly.

Uncrustables 速凍三明治的產品擴張對他們來說如火如荼，發展勢頭非常強勁。

In fact, the growth in Uncrustables has added over one point of incremental growth to the company overall in recent years.

事實上，近年來，Uncrustables 的增長已為公司整體增長增加了一個多百分點。

Uncrustables has been 20 years in the making, so we love now to look forward and see this incredible growth trajectory to a billion-dollar brand.

Uncrustables 已經走過了 20 年的歷程，是以，我們很高興現在能夠展望未來，看到這個令人難以置信的成長軌跡，成為一個價值十億美元的品牌。

But at the very beginning, there was a lot that needed to be done to invest in the R&D behind the making of that sandwich.

但在製作三明治的最初階段，我們需要做大量的工作來投資研發。

Uncrustables are manufactured in facilities in Colorado and Kentucky.

無殼食品在科羅拉多州和肯塔基州的工廠生產。

A third location is being added in Alabama.

在阿拉巴馬州還將增設第三家分店。

Though there was a period of time that non-peanut butter nut butters were gaining share and driving a lot of growth in the category, experts say that has dissipated recently.

雖然曾有一段時間，非花生醬堅果黃油的市場份額不斷擴大，並推動了該類產品的大量增長，但專家們認為，這種情況最近已經消失了。

One of the things that both JIP and Skippy and mainline brands have done is develop natural versions of their own under the mainline brand, not that the consumer is going to switch from a natural organic brand to JIF, but perhaps keep some consumers within the JIF family.

JIP 和 Skippy 以及主線品牌所做的一件事，就是在主線品牌下開發自己的天然版本，這並不是說消費者會從天然有機品牌轉到 JIF，而是說可能會把一些消費者留在 JIF 大家庭中。

In many parts of the world, peanut butter is regarded as an unpalatable American curiosity.

在世界許多地方，花生醬被視為難以下嚥的美國奇特食品。

Though most people can plate peanut butter with America, its popularity is growing elsewhere, like in Mexico and China, or in Canada, where per capita consumption is slowly approaching that of the U.S.

雖然大多數人都能把花生醬與美國聯繫在一起，但它在其他地方也越來越受歡迎，比如在墨西哥和中國，或者在加拿大，那裡的人均消費量正慢慢接近美國。

In 2022, the U.S. exported about 30 million pounds of peanut butter to Canada.

2022 年，美國向加拿大出口了約 3000 萬磅花生醬。

To put that into perspective, that's also about 30 million 16-ounce jars of peanut butter.

從這個角度來看，這也相當於大約 3 000 萬罐 16 盎司裝的花生醬。

The world's largest peanut producer by far, China, has already bought into the craze, but uses the nut mainly for sauces and oils.

迄今為止，世界上最大的花生生產國中國已經加入了這股熱潮，但主要將這種堅果用於調味醬和油。

Advocates are working to shift that interest towards peanut butter.

倡導者正在努力將這種興趣轉向花生醬。

If we could just get them to consume one pound per capita of peanut butter, they would far surpass what we consume.

如果我們能讓他們人均消費一磅花生醬，他們的消費量就會遠遠超過我們。

But it's an acquired taste for people who don't grow up eating it.

但對於不是吃這種食物長大的人來說，這是一種後天習得的口味。

During its Q2 earnings, Hormel Foods reported their international earnings were partially offset by lower sales in China, though the company says there is still huge growth potential there.

在第二季度財報中，荷美爾食品公司報告稱，儘管中國市場仍有巨大的增長潛力，但中國銷售額的下降部分抵消了其國際收益。

We definitely have a strong presence in China, in Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines.

我們在中國、馬來西亞、新加坡和菲律賓都有很強的影響力。

We have pretty aggressive growth plans in overseas markets for this brand.

我們為該品牌制定了相當積極的海外市場增長計劃。

But despite a bullish outlook, the industry is facing some risks.

但是，儘管前景看好，該行業也面臨著一些風險。

In 2022, the salmonella contamination forced Smuckers to recall Jif products for months.

2022 年，沙門氏菌汙染迫使 Smuckers 公司召回了幾個月的 Jif 產品。

One of our competitors had to exit the marketplace temporarily, and that meant that there was an increased demand for our products.

我們的一個競爭對手不得不暫時退出市場，這意味著對我們產品的需求增加了。

And so as a result of that, we had to ship everything we could to try to satisfy the market.

是以，我們不得不想方設法滿足市場需求。