Watch out for Skippy.

harryopal1

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Stone the crows. Bloody Hell and Fair crack of the Whip.

I have been buying an Indonesian made peanut butter. They seem to have a problem with mixing as usually there is a layer of oil at the top of each jar, with softish product under the oil and the paste becomes thick and almost unspreadable at the bottom. I usually stand the jars on their heads and over a period that seems to help. Not expensive so it doesn't really bother me.

My Indonesian wife had gotten used to an Australian peanut butter. living in Townsville, and came home a couple of days ago with a similar looking jar from another supermarket. Same lable colouring as the Australian product and to cap it all off named "Skippy" brand. What could be more Australian? I was then interested to see if it were produced under licence in Indonesia. A line of tiny print ran vertically and almost invisibly to one side of the main lable. I had to use special, lapidary 3 x times magnifying glasses to read the tiny print. "Made in China."

I looked up a Woolworths - Australia web site when checking which brand Skippy was copying. And then found that the "Australian" product had this:

Made in Australia from less than 10% Australian ingredients


Mind you Woolworths is the company that were shamed when caught out selling "freshly baked bread" which was actually made in Israel, frozen and then defrosted in Australia two weeks later. Caught out the company was fined and had to place apologies in Australian newspapers. Their apology said, "We are sorry if we inadvertently misled our customers."

Bloody hell. Are their any ethics in business?
 
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Ethics run counter to profit most of the time. The only time ethics are important for a business is as a marketing tool, for a certain market segment.

Ethics don’t pay, customers do. If customers can’t tell the difference between a fresh baked bread and a previously frozen one, and they prefer the lower price, then the frozen bread sells more. Obviously it doesn’t justify lying, and false advertising should be penalized.

I’ve been looking at airlines with interest. Despite widespread complaints about cramped seats in the economy class, most passengers consistently buy the cheapest tickets they can find. People say they value comfort, but their buying pattern says otherwise.
 
there is a layer of oil at the top of each jar, with softish product under the oil and the paste becomes thick and almost unspreadable at the bottom.

My experience has been that the more "organic" the peanut butter, the more it resembles what you describe. Emulsifying nut products, so that they don't ever separate, may involve non-organic processes.

Let me be the first to point out that I don't really know what I'm talking about. While I am not a huge fan of the sugar added to commercial peanut butter, I am a placid consumer of American mass-produced peanut butter like Skippy and Jif. But, when I get more "difficult" products like the separated stuff you are describing, I generally think there is a more peanut-like, authentic taste.
 
I've bought that skippy. They also sell Skippy peanut butter in the states. I'd be surprised if they made it in Australia and then shipped it to the US, but anything is possible.
My favorite local peanut butter is The Nine Pindakaas, which also separates. I just like the taste. You can stir it with the bread knife to mix it back up once every week or so. It doesn't even make a mess, since you the just wipe the knife on the bread.
 
Thanks for the responses. As I said of the Indonesian made peanut butter, "... Not expensive so it doesn't really bother me. " I was unaware of Skippy being made in the US. I thought the locally sold product was copying the style of a peanut butter marketed in Australia by Sanitarium. I like the idea of the locally made peanut butter being perhaps in a more natural state.

And why would an American peanut butter be called Skippy? Perhaps the Australian TV series "Skippy" the bush kangaroo was showing in the US and the marketing people thought this would make the peanut butter popular with kids?

My ire was more about the easy ability for many companies to happily mislead people and misrepresent products. Fifty years ago I spent a few months working on some industrial magazines in Melbourne with the office located with the then world's largest advertising agency. J Walter Thompson. There was a view amongst the "creative" people that if you could write a slogan that had believability then it became a kind of truth. Perhaps not so far removed from Goebbell's view that if you told a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually believe it.
 
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Skippy has been made in the US since 1932. There was a US comic strip with the same name back then.

Its currently made in Little Rock, Arkansas and Shandong, China. Owned by Hormel Foods, it’s the second most popular peanut butter brand, after Jif.
 
I prefer Smucker’s Goober Grape PB & J, so I don’t know much about Jif and Skippy. Straight PB is used mostly as a base for sate, gado-gado, or karedok at home. For this purpose the least additional ingredients and the more generic, the better.
 
Hah! When I first started hanging out with Indonesians in Washington DC, I used to make a quick-n-dirty peanut sauce using peanut butter. Definitely not as good as starting by grinding fresh roasted peanuts, but for me it'll do in a pinch. The Indonesians were all horrified though and I've always felt slightly guilty about the short-cut.
 
Thanks for the responses. As I said of the Indonesian made peanut butter, "... Not expensive so it doesn't really bother me. " I was unaware of Skippy being made in the US. I thought the locally sold product was copying the style of a peanut butter marketed in Australia by Sanitarium. I like the idea of the locally made peanut butter being perhaps in a more natural state.

And why would an American peanut butter be called Skippy? Perhaps the Australian TV series "Skippy" the bush kangaroo was showing in the US and the marketing people thought this would make the peanut butter popular with kids?

My ire was more about the easy ability for many companies to happily mislead people and misrepresent products. Fifty years ago I spent a few months working on some industrial magazines in Melbourne with the office located with the then world's largest advertising agency. J Walter Thompson. There was a view amongst the "creative" people that if you could write a slogan that had believability then it became a kind of truth. Perhaps not so far removed from Goebbell's view that if you told a lie big enough and keep repeating it people will eventually believe it.
It is all about twisting the truth or out right lying- think about the phrase:
Nothing is better than insert product name.

Does it mean the product is the best in its field or does it mean that literally "nothing"is actually better?
The UK used to have rather strict advertising regulations I don't know about other countries but to outright say their product was the best on the market it had to be proven to be so, however there are many ways to play with words to indicate a product is the best on the market without actually saying it is and being open to legal action, and if there is a way then you can bet your arse the ad/marketing people have found it.
The bread in Aus- was fresh baked... from frozen- they didn't lie per se, they just omitted a chunk of truth.
This not actually lying but not being truthful has been going on for decades.
There are loads of marketing psychology videos out there.
Your shopping choices are worked on before you even enter the store. Even the colour of the trolleys has been decided on to impact the marketing psychology.
I find it all very fascinating and decidedly shady.

 
Hah! When I first started hanging out with Indonesians in Washington DC, I used to make a quick-n-dirty peanut sauce using peanut butter. Definitely not as good as starting by grinding fresh roasted peanuts, but for me it'll do in a pinch. The Indonesians were all horrified though and I've always felt slightly guilty about the short-cut.
Horrified Indonesians haven’t lived here long enough. Not many people have time to make satay sauce from scratch, or anything from scratch for that matter.

My mother in law often uses bottled sambal oelek for her Rendang, because we don’t always have fresh chili peppers. The vinegar changes the taste a little, but having lived in USA for a couple of decades, I can’t even tell the difference. Besides, real rendang uses fresh turmeric leaves, which are next to impossible to find in USA, especially in smaller cities.

We make do with what we have, 80% authentic is still a lot better than nothing.
 
It is all about twisting the truth or out right lying- think about the phrase:
Nothing is better than insert product name.

Does it mean the product is the best in its field or does it mean that literally "nothing"is actually better?
The UK used to have rather strict advertising regulations I don't know about other countries but to outright say their product was the best on the market it had to be proven to be so, however there are many ways to play with words to indicate a product is the best on the market without actually saying it is and being open to legal action, and if there is a way then you can bet your arse the ad/marketing people have found it.
The bread in Aus- was fresh baked... from frozen- they didn't lie per se, they just omitted a chunk of truth.
This not actually lying but not being truthful has been going on for decades.
There are loads of marketing psychology videos out there.
Your shopping choices are worked on before you even enter the store. Even the colour of the trolleys has been decided on to impact the marketing psychology.
I find it all very fascinating and decidedly shady.


Innocent and naive with the birth of our first child I thought I it was kind of nice when leaving the hospital we were given by Nestles a large free tin of Milk powder for babies. It was some time before I learned the truth about the superiority of Mother's breast milk and the absolutely deadly marketing of tinned milk being pushed in Third World countries with poor quality water resulting in deadly consequences for those babies unfortunately taken off mother's milk for the powdered stuff.

We were also taken in by advertising for a brand of black current juice "rich in vitamin C" and ideal for small children. It wasn't cheap but thought we were doing the right thing. I think it was the consumer magazine Choice which exposed the reality that the juice was loaded with an unhealthy level of sugar.

And now here we are in Indonesian with television bombarded with advertisements selling fast food, crap products implying these products will keep the children super happy and create perfect families.
 
Innocent and naive with the birth of our first child I thought I it was kind of nice when leaving the hospital we were given by Nestles a large free tin of Milk powder for babies. It was some time before I learned the truth about the superiority of Mother's breast milk and the absolutely deadly marketing of tinned milk being pushed in Third World countries with poor quality water resulting in deadly consequences for those babies unfortunately taken off mother's milk for the powdered stuff.

We were also taken in by advertising for a brand of black current juice "rich in vitamin C" and ideal for small children. It wasn't cheap but thought we were doing the right thing. I think it was the consumer magazine Choice which exposed the reality that the juice was loaded with an unhealthy level of sugar.

And now here we are in Indonesian with television bombarded with advertisements selling fast food, crap products implying these products will keep the children super happy and create perfect families.
one of the reasons I don't watch TV. :)
There are alternatives- I watch lots of documentaries in YouTube, currently working my way through Ross Kemps 'gangs'
it is delightful to watch something from start to end w/out loud annoying ad jingles or big cheesy grins trying to sell, I also never see ads in YT, though I know they are there...
hmm hubby gets them & worst of all he is an ad clicker, he clicks & I smack him round the earhole :D
 
I watch quite a few Indonesian news programs to try and sharpen my ears for listening to the Indonesian language. I click around trying to avoid the advts but they often have wall to wall advts for 15 minutes.

I thought TV advertising in Australia was bad enough but here they run advertising snippets across the screen in news programs often obscuring the images.

It is noticeable how many products are asserting that this particular food or drink will make you healthier and implying resistance to Covid. And then there are those magnetic necklaces and bracelets which are "fantastic" and for good measure have attached an Islamic symbol to seal the deal.
 
It is noticeable how many products are asserting that this particular food or drink will make you healthier and implying resistance to Covid. And then there are those magnetic necklaces and bracelets which are "fantastic" and for good measure have attached an Islamic symbol to seal the deal.
I think my wife has one of those necklaces. I’ve tried to have a rational discussion about such scams with her, but it’s pretty pointless.

In the US, they had lots of similar bracelets and such pitched by sports stars. So, it’s not just Indonesia.
 
I think my wife has one of those necklaces. I’ve tried to have a rational discussion about such scams with her, but it’s pretty pointless.

In the US, they had lots of similar bracelets and such pitched by sports stars. So, it’s not just Indonesia.
Over here there used to be commercials promoting copper infused products that supposedly give you more energy. There is absolutely no scientific proof that wearing copper gives you more ‘energy’, yet I see these products sold at big box stores, because people buy them.
 
Hah! When I first started hanging out with Indonesians in Washington DC, I used to make a quick-n-dirty peanut sauce using peanut butter. Definitely not as good as starting by grinding fresh roasted peanuts, but for me it'll do in a pinch. The Indonesians were all horrified though and I've always felt slightly guilty about the short-cut.
Trick....use the chunky one not creamy one....and once you've added jeruk limau, a bit of sambal terasi kokita, chopped stir fried shallots and kecap manis...and last (but not least ingredient)..play innocent...it should be almost as delicious as the natural thing..can't fool most Indonesian mothers though.
 
Same lable colouring as the Australian product and to cap it all off named "Skippy" brand. What could be more Australian? I was then interested to see if it were produced under licence in Indonesia. A line of tiny print ran vertically and almost invisibly to one side of the main lable. I had to use special, lapidary 3 x times magnifying glasses to read the tiny print. "Made in China."
Skippy has been made in the US since 1932. There was a US comic strip with the same name back then.

Its currently made in Little Rock, Arkansas and Shandong, China. Owned by Hormel Foods, it’s the second most popular peanut butter brand, after Jif.
If Skippy is indeed a US brand, the Skippy products imported in Indonesia are all manufactured by the chinese plant of Hormel and are somewhat different in taste as the US made Skippy.
Jif, that Jaime C metionned, is an US brand and the Jif products we get here are made in the US, not China. At least if you were used to it in the US, the taste wouldn't be different if you buy a jar in your local supermarket.
 
Jif in Australia is the same product as Cif in Indonesia, both made by Unilever they taste nothing like peanut butter.
 
Stone the crows. Bloody Hell and Fair crack of the Whip.

I have been buying an Indonesian made peanut butter. They seem to have a problem with mixing as usually there is a layer of oil at the top of each jar, with softish product under the oil and the paste becomes thick and almost unspreadable at the bottom. I usually stand the jars on their heads and over a period that seems to help. Not expensive so it doesn't really bother me.

My Indonesian wife had gotten used to an Australian peanut butter. living in Townsville, and came home a couple of days ago with a similar looking jar from another supermarket. Same lable colouring as the Australian product and to cap it all off named "Skippy" brand. What could be more Australian? I was then interested to see if it were produced under licence in Indonesia. A line of tiny print ran vertically and almost invisibly to one side of the main lable. I had to use special, lapidary 3 x times magnifying glasses to read the tiny print. "Made in China."

I looked up a Woolworths - Australia web site when checking which brand Skippy was copying. And then found that the "Australian" product had this:

Made in Australia from less than 10% Australian ingredients


Mind you Woolworths is the company that were shamed when caught out selling "freshly baked bread" which was actually made in Israel, frozen and then defrosted in Australia two weeks later. Caught out the company was fined and had to place apologies in Australian newspapers. Their apology said, "We are sorry if we inadvertently misled our customers."

Bloody hell. Are their any ethics in business?
There are several western branded food products in Indonesia that are Made in China. Another is a Mexican tortilla chips that were at Ranch Market in Jakarta.
 

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