The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving and peanut butter fun facts. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Peanut Butter fun facts.

Peanut Butter Fun Facts: Peanut butter was invented and reinvented many times during history. Peanuts were known as early as 950 B.C. and originated in South America. The ancient Incas used peanuts and were known to have made it into a paste-like substance.

  • Joseph L. Rosenfield invented a churning process that made smooth peanut butter smooth. In 1928, Rosenfield licensed his invention to the Pond Company, the makers of Peter Pan peanut butter. In 1932, Rosenfield began making his own brand of peanut butter called Skippy which included a crunchy style peanut butter.
  • Dr. Ambrose Straub patented a machine which could be used to make peanut butter in 1903.
  • Americans consume 700 million pounds of peanut butter annually, about three pounds per person.
  • Georgia is the #1 peanut producing state.
  • It takes almost 850 peanuts to make an 18 oz. jar of peanut butter.
  • The average American child will eat 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches by the time he or she graduates from high school.
  • Americans eat about 3 pounds of peanut butter per person each year, totaling about 500 million pounds… enough to cover the floor of the Grand Canyon.
  • Two peanut farmers have been elected president of the United States: Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.
  • Nearly half of the U.S. peanut crop is made into peanut butter each year.
  • The world’s largest peanut butter and jelly sandwich measured 40 feet long.  It contained 150 pounds of peanut butter and 50 pounds of jelly. It was created November 6, 1993 in Peanut, Pennsylvania.
  • American consumers prefer creamy peanut butter to chunky by a 60% to 40% ratio.  Children and women prefer creamy, while most men opt for chunky.
  • Although peanut butter is considered to be a kids’ food, adults actually eat more peanut butter than kids each year.
  • When making a PB&J sandwich, 96% of people put the peanut butter on before the jelly.
  • “Arachibutyrophobia” (pronounced I-RA-KID-BU-TI-RO-PHO-BI-A) is the fear of peanut butter getting stuck to the roof of your mouth.

Key Dates

  • January 24th is National Peanut Butter Day.
  • March 1st is National Peanut Butter Lovers Day.
  • June 12th is National Peanut Butter Cookie Day.
  • November 20th is National Peanut Butter Fudge Day.

If you happen to have a sweet tooth, check out this recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge.

Peanut Butter Fun Facts We Missed

Let us know if we missed any peanut butter fun facts in the comment section or our food truck forum. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia: Fun Facts about Peanut Butter.

Find all of the National Food Holidays to spice up your food truck menu specials throughout the year.