KEY POINTS:
Where has all the peanut butter gone?
Both the country's major supermarket groups are reporting significant and ongoing problems sourcing enough of the spread many would consider a shopping staple.
Eta peanut butter has not been available for weeks.
Brand owner Heinz Wattie's says this is due firstly
to problems with supplies of peanuts, and then to a fire in the Chinese factory where its product is made.
Only this week has the company started offering supermarkets limited supplies again.
Sanitarium Chinese peanut butter, made in the same factory, is also absent from the shelves. Marketing manager Mark Roper said it wouldn't be available again for another month.
Progressive Enterprises, operator of Woolworths and Foodtown, said it was also struggling to stock enough of its own Select and Home Brand product.
A spokesman said there had been a shortage of peanuts for months. "This is being experienced across all brands and ranges of peanut butter, making it a challenge to keep all brands in stock."
Peanut butter made in Australia is not affected. Sanitarium's Australian-manufactured Original range, launched this year after the company faced flak for selling Chinese product, is available.
Kraft peanut butters can also still be found on supermarket shelves.
Kraft Foods spokesman Simon Talbot said the company had a long-term supply agreement with the Queensland-based Peanut Company of Australia, which ensured consistency.
"If you focus on quality you have a much better chance of getting supply assurance. But inversely you do have to lock in, and pay for that quality," he said.
Peanut Company of Australia chief executive Bob Hansen said China's growing and increasingly affluent population was having an impact.
"China's had a lot of problems with peanut supply in the last 12 months, mainly to do with their increasing consumption.
"They've been restricting exports for the last seven to eight months and that's created a bit of a shortage worldwide."
Rob Chemaly, general manager of strategy and new ventures for Foodstuffs, which operates Pak'nSave and New World, said this shortage was putting pressure on Australian peanut butter brands.
Wellington-based Whittaker's, maker of the Peanut Slab chocolate bar, gets peanuts from South Africa but supplies are now less fluid and it is having to pay more.
"Our basic problem is getting the quality we want," marketing manager Philip Poole said. "It certainly hasn't been easy."
Heinz Wattie's spokesman Paul Hemsley said the Eta crisis was now resolved, and the company was aiming to be fully stocked again within three weeks. He did not believe the problem would recur. "I don't think anyone can remember this sort of disruption before."
Industry sources said the Chinese peanut crop was due for harvest in October, and was looking good.
