[Laneco]

I won't divulge the name of the company, but they make nut butters (peanut butter, almond butter, etc). They had a change in business ownership and the new folks had some great ideas for profit. Not always great for quality though...

For the peanut butter, they were using a particular strain of peanuts that is farmed in the US. It's a little expensive, but the peanuts are sweet and make a great butter. But peanuts from overseas are much cheaper. Catch was, they had to buy them in very large quantities which meant they had to be stored frozen until use. They weren't sweet to begin with and the storage/freezing didn't help.

The peanut butter was bland to the point of absolute tastelessness. It couldn't be sold in the boutique stores where it had long commanded a premium price, so the company made an agreement with certain big box stores to take the huge supply off their hands at a significant price drop. So many ways that this was short sighted for this company...

Makes me wonder if the lack of flavor in many current candies (especially chocolates and nut bars) is some story similar to this.

angela