When the American political commentator and noted peanut butter lover William F. Buckley Jr. arrived at an English boarding school in the late 1930s, care packages from home would include jars of peanut butter, which his British peers, he later wrote, “one after another actually spit out.”
The travel writer Rick Steves once recalled that for his first visit to Europe, in 1973, he packed a big plastic tube with what he knew couldn’t be found there: “a swirl of peanut butter and strawberry jam.”
But over the last decade, Britain and many other corners of Europe have come around. Perched between the jams and marmalades at Waitrose, a popular British grocery chain, there are now 35 varieties of peanut butter — creamy and chunky, sweet and salty and extra-dark roasted, crammed into jars, squeeze bottles and two-pound tubs.
In cities across the United Kingdom, peanut butter appears in shortbread form at Hawksmoor, a high-end steak chain; in a tart at the Greek chain Gaia, and sandwiched among 20 tiers of chocolate and mascarpone in a viral layer cake at Lavo, an Italian restaurant in affluent Mayfair. Peanut butter — or as Jon Krampner, the author of “Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter,” calls it, the “all-American spread” — has well and truly landed across the Atlantic.
Britain is not the first European nation to take up the sticky baton — the Netherlands outpaces even the United States in peanut butter consumption, according to Mr. Krampner. Yet it is the most recent European country where the product has taken off, with sales skyrocketing in Britain over the last half-decade as it’s popped up in brownies, bakes and burger relishes and as a topping for curries and crumpets.
According to a report from Market Data Forecast, European peanut butter sales are growing at an estimated rate of more than 10 percent each year, a market likely to be worth $1.35 billion by 2026. Britain is the “growth engine in the area,” the report says.
In 2020, peanut butter outpaced jam, the quintessential British preserve, for the first time in sales. A year earlier, perhaps sensing a shift in tastes, Marmite, the yeasty black spread beloved in Britain for more than a century, introduced a peanut butter-Marmite hybrid.
But how peanut butter conquered Britain depends on whom you ask. Mr. Krampner points to “gastronomic imperialism,” and the continued influence of American culture.
British peanut butter is different from its forebears in the United States. The jars filling shoppers’ baskets are more salty than sweet, with many starting out as small-batch products rather than mega-brands. (For decades, Sun-Pat, the closest the United Kingdom has to Jif or Peter Pan, remained a lone warrior on shelves.)
ManiLife’s Deep Roast Crunchy was named Britain’s best peanut butter in a taste test by The Times of London this year, having started life in an old rugby-club kitchen in London rented by its founder, Stu Macdonald, less than a decade ago. Pip & Nut, another popular brand, also had humble beginnings.
Peanut butter is a favorite of Flic Everett, a 53-year-old writer living in Scotland, who said she was “genuinely upset” to find Pip & Nut out of stock in her local store. “U.K. options have improved massively,” she said.
Andy Coley, 48, a leadership trainer based in London, said his family of four goes through a two-pound tub every two weeks: “It goes into porridge, onto pancakes, toast and in with noodles for satay.”
He recalls that very few options were available when he was growing up, but in the last five years he’s been pleased to find “more choice and ranges.” His go-to these days is the Grandessa 100 Percent Smooth peanut butter he buys from Aldi.
More options abound on the continent. In Brussels and Paris, there is Buddy Buddy, a “nut butter atelier” selling peanut butter cups, coffees and cruffins, as well as its own line of peanut butters. And in the Netherlands, there is de Pindakaaswinkel, Europe’s first dedicated peanut butter store.
Founded by Michiel Vos in 2016, the shop offers an eclectic mix of jarred peanut butters in flavors like salted caramel, lemongrass and chili and coconut. “I thought, well, I should not bet everything on one flavor,” Mr. Vos said. “Let’s do 10 different peanut butter flavors, probably there will be one that’s acceptable.” He now has 11 stores across the Netherlands.
Still, one American favorite yet to take off there, or in Britain: the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Despite her love of the spread, Ms. Everett said that “not being American, I have never, ever eaten it with jam.”
The sandwich’s flavors are partly recreated at Gelupo, a gelateria in London, and the restaurant Duck & Waffle has a waffle-based version on its brunch menu, but as far as kids’ lunch bags go, forget it.
As a new generation of adults increases its consumption and goes on to have children, however, younger Britons may develop a nostalgia for peanut butter. Ryan Lepicier, the president and chief executive of the Atlanta-based National Peanut Board, reflected on the “emotional connection that Americans have to peanut butter” that begins with Mom’s PB&J, and lasts a lifetime.
“Peanut butter is like home,” he added. In another decade, Brits may be saying the same.
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