Peanut Butter Recall & Surprise in Price Forecast

Peanut Butter Recall & Surprise in Price Forecast plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

Trader Joe’s has issued a recall notice for peanut butter that may be contaminated with salmonella. The recall was issued this past weekend and has been expanded to dozens of peanut, cashew and almond butters. A teenage boy in Spokane has contracted salmonella and it may be linked to the recalled product. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention linked 29 salmonella illnesses in 18 states to Trader Joe's Creamy Salted Valencia Peanut Butter.

Food prices this year will top last year, but there is one bit of good news in the latest food price forecast according to USDA Economist Ricky Volpe.

VOLPE: Growing conditions and weather have remained excellent, very favorable for most major fruit and vegetable crops throughout 2012 and we now are on track for deflation for fresh vegetable prices. We’re now forecasting fresh vegetable prices to fall 1 to 2% in 2012 and I should note that a forecast for deflation for a major category such as this is very rare.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

The Humane Society of the United States has filed yet another lawsuit. Imagine that. This time the animal rights and welfare group is charging that the National Pork Board “struck an unlawful deal” by purchasing the well known “The Other White Meat” registered trademark from the National Pork Producers Council. The CEO of the NPB defends the purchase, saying that they bought the slogan in order to ensure that it would always be owned by pork producers. The HSUS is saying that the NPB made the purchase as a way to funnel money to the NPPC, which is a lobbying group. The sale was made by NPB, and approved by the secretary of agriculture more than six years ago, and the NPB says that, while it has started to utilize a different tagline for advertising, it still continues to use “The Other White Meat” in various promotion projects. So why is the HSUS suing over it now? Good question. Has their loss of several different lawsuits against the ag industry recently created this backlash? Are they picking straws? Do they have an actual basis for yet another lawsuit? Only a judge will be able to determine that.

Thanks Lacy. Have you made up your mind which of the candidates you plan on voting for this election? I’d be interested to hear your choices and the reasons why. Just drop me an email to gmartin @ aginfo.net. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.