What happens when peanut butter lovers take on New York? In April, the National Peanut Board “spread” the peanut butter love in New York City, with activities including social media-fueled PB&J deliveries, nutrition sessions and delicious recipes. To mark the end of a nutty week and celebrate National Peanut Butter & Jelly Day, American peanut farmers teamed up to make 1,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the city’s hungry – accomplished under one hour.
The result? With the help of countless volunteers and partners, 1,059 PB&J sandwiches were made and delivered to The Bowery Mission. Plus, the #PowerfulPeanut pop-up stands also raised more than $3,000 for Peanut Butter for the Hungry.
Managed by the American Peanut Council (APC), Peanut Butter for the Hungry is a program that involves all members of the U.S. peanut industry, from growers to manufacturers. The program’s goal is to help severely malnourished children, doing so through the production and delivery of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) to countries in the developing world. RUTF is a ready-to-eat, vitamin-enriched staple that uses peanut butter as its base. Nutritionist-developed, RUTF has been shown to cure and prevent malnutrition. In 2013 alone, UNICEF received enough RUTF paste packets to treat 2.6 million children in 56 countries; this supply covers approximately 15 per cent of those with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) globally. This supply level has been at an all-time high since 2000, and is expected to increase with the greater demand to manage acute malnutrition.
More peanutty pop-ups are planned for cities across the United States, including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
Sources: National Peanut Board, United States Department of Agriculture, UNICEF.org