The Popular Brand That Used To Make Walmart's Great Value Peanut Butter

A jar of PB is a beautiful and useful thing, whether you are using it to riff on untraditional peanut butter sandwich ideas or implementing the empty jar to make a delicious, savory peanut sauce. Walmart's Great Value peanut butter is a worthy sub for some of the pricey name brands out there, offering delicious taste that's backed by excellent customer reviews. We know by now that the retailer hires out big names to make its private label products — we found out where Walmart sources its Great Value ice cream, for instance — and we recently became aware that, in the early Oughties, at least, the GV PB was made by the same company that produced Peter Pan peanut butter.

Although it appears to no longer be the case, ConAgra, parent company of Peter Pan, used to manufacture Great Value peanut butter for Walmart. This became clear in 2007 when ConAgra recalled three years' worth of peanut butter that was linked with a salmonella outbreak, naming both Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butters in the notice. In 2020, ConAgra sold Peter Pan peanut butter to Post Holdings, which was already helping to co-manufacture the products. Part of the deal had to do with the fact that ConaAgra wanted to get out of the business of partnering to create private-label spreads, the way it was doing with Walmart. As a massive food services business, ConAgra still produces several items for Great Value, but peanut butter doesn't seem to be among them.

In February 2007, the FDA traced a massive outbreak of salmonella to peanut butter manufactured at a single plant in Sylvester, Georgia. At least 628 people became ill as a result of the infected peanut butter, of which about ⅕ were hospitalized as a result. The salmonella seems to have resulted due to a leaky roof and a malfunctioning sprinkler system at the manufacturing facility, the wetness from which led to growth of the pathogen in jars of peanut butter. At the time, both Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butters were being produced at the plant.

In 2016, ConAgra was sentenced to over $11 million in judgments resulting from the spate of illnesses. At the time it was handed down, that was the largest penalty that had ever been assessed in a food safety case. ConAgra was cited for not only having faulty conditions that led to the salmonella, but also failing to detect the outbreak in its products.

It's unknown what role, if any, the food safety fiasco might have played in ConAgra's decision to divest itself of the private label peanut butter business. It's also not currently known who is manufacturing Great Value peanut butter. Given the fact that Walmart has enjoyed tremendous success with its many private labels across hardlines and softlines, it can be assumed that the company was choosy when it shopped for a new manufacturer.