Skippy Brand Owner Purchases Mr. Peanut, No Guarantee Of His Safety

In what feels like a spiritually sinister move, Yahoo! reports that Kraft is selling the Planters peanut brand to Hormel, which also owns Spam and Skippy. The sale was for a whopping $3.35 billion. Holy shit, that's a lot of money. All those Mr. Peanuts, grown, sold, and eaten. Baby Peanuts? Or maybe it's Bart. Whatever your name is, man, I think you're done for. I see a grinder in your future unless we break you out of that contract of yours.

Even before the pandemic, Kraft was struggling as customers began straying from processed foods. Now it's jettisoning brands in order to focus solely on ones that are bringing in the bucks, like Lunchables. (Lunchables. Who knew?) Last year Kraft broke off Polly-O and Breakstone to French company Lactalis for $3.2 billion. That's a lot of sour cream and ricotta, people.

The sale of Planters to Hormel means that the Spam people get the whole lineup of stuff including Cheez Balls, the inferior-to-Cheetos Cheez Curls, trail mix, mixed nuts, and the eternally tooth-cracking Corn Nuts.

Hormel's planning on giving the Planters brand some TLC, as it did with Skippy when they purchased it eight years ago. After some messing around, it managed to boost Skippy into a powerhouse of a brand, investing in advertising along with new product lines like squeeze packs, and no-sugar and extra protein versions of the peanut butter.

Now, I have a proposition for you, Hormel: use the same machinery you use to grind peanut butter, but with Spam. What I'm seeing is a Spam butter, hastily smearable onto soft white bread and on to people's faces. Or perhaps chunks of Spam mixed into a trail mix to create a balanced meal. Or a frozen pizza! There's stars and dollars in these eyes of mine, Hormel. Just trust me.