Ted Higginbottom was happy to see a dish heavy on peanuts this week on the menu at an Asian chain restaurant, but he said the Mandarin Kung Pao didn't land there by chance.
The 60-year-old Texas peanut farmer said his industry has pushed hard to get peanuts onto menus at restaurants like Pei Wei — a national, 163-location chain owned by P.F. Chang's. Whether its peanuts, cranberries, oats or other products, producers have found that successfully marketing to national outlets can pay off with big sales.
"If not for organizations like the (National) Peanut Board, there would not be as many peanut farmers in the U.S.," Higginbottom said. "Some of them wouldn't be in business."
Some note that successfully wooing big chains can lead to pressure to reduce prices, but Higgenbottom said that wasn't a concern for the peanut board. The organization started as a decades-old quota system that set peanut farmers' production levels and prices was about to end in 2000, throwing growers for the first time into a free market.
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