Skippy Peanut Butter

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Peanut butter as we know it has been in production for well over a century, but roots of peanut butter paste date as far back as the Inca. From the initial Canadian patent for peanut butter in 1884, the product has evolved and become a staple for millions of people in many countries and supplementing numerous dietary needs. The Skippy brand, currently owned by Hormel Foods is second only to Jif. According to data from statista.com, the United States sales of Skippy proved to second to Jif, netting nearly 200 million dollars. In both a domestic and global sense, I cannot imagine peanut butter being anywhere near the decline or retirement stage. Maturation is where I would classify the particular product of Skippy peanut butter, and the introduction …show more content…

Today I can either utilize it through the website, through a mobile application, or download “Messenger Lite”. The latter of the trio is a bare bones model of the former platforms, not having any additional features such as sending as an SMS, or offering GIFs. I see this as an appropriate parallel to Skippy’s peanut butter products as “chunky,” “smooth” and “reduced-fat,” respectively. The product remains the same, and the life cycle continues to flourish in maturation, but the diversification of a similar enough product lends itself to appealing to different types of consumers. This method while a product is in maturation can be used for products across the board, and I would argue it is essential to keeping the product alive. This is not to imply that this is always successful. One example I find ironic, was although the original patent for peanut butter was Canadian, Skippy brand peanut butter has since exited the shelves of Canadian stores as of May 2017. A Fortune interview with Sylvain Charlebois, a professor at Dalhousie University specializing in food distribution and policy provides some insight as to why Hormel ceased to serve all varieties of the product ““[Canada is] a vast country with only 36 million …show more content…

Modern vinyl records are nearing a century old, and the product as a whole seemed to have peaked in the 1980s. Vinyl records themselves most nearly ghosted the market place by the mid 1990s with the advent of digital media and the compact disc. I had thought for nearly all of my youth that the ease of convenience of digital music, and especially streaming services had put the final nail in the coffin for this product as retirement was in its last waining hours. According to Jordan Passman, contributor to Forbes, “Vinyl records are projected to sell 40 million units in 2017, with sales nearing the $1 billion benchmark for the first time this millennium. This impressive milestone has been untouched since the peak of the industry in the 1980s…explosive by today’s standards”. It surprised me to see a comeback for the platform, and while the records themselves are continually ramping up in a production, the new variation on the record player is truly the star. I can see a few reasons as to why someone would take a leap into, or come back to vinyl. For one, a vinyl record jacket doubles as fantastic wall art. Artists spend much time professionally commissioning or self designing their album covers, and a basic MP3 thumbnail or even a compact disc cover just does not do it enough justice. They can and have been used to decorate a wall, or an entire room.

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