Americans are eating more peanut butter and less of everything else made from peanuts, and a record crop is keeping up with them, according to a Chart of Note from USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS).

Peanut butter accounts for more than 60 percent of all peanuts consumed as food in the United States and is increasingly recognised as a low-cost source of protein, ERS says.

According to the Peanut Stocks and Processing report of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service, peanut butter consumption has increased 6 percent over the average of the previous 10 years, while consumption of other peanut products has declined. For the 2024/25 marketing year, consumption of peanut snacks, which include peanuts, snack bars and trail mixes, was below the 10-year average.

Rising net food consumption of peanuts is supported by expanded production. U.S. peanut output reached a record 6.5 billion pounds in 2024/25, 25 percent higher than in 2014/15.

That growth in domestic supply has also made room for more peanut crush, up 6 percent since 2014/15, and more exports, up 10 percent over the same period.

For peanut growers the picture is a steady one: a single product, peanut butter, anchors domestic demand and has kept growing while the snack market has softened, and the surplus from a larger crop has found its way into crushing and export markets. The chart, prepared by ERS economists Maria Bukowski and Bryn Swearingen, is drawn from the ERS Oil Crops Outlook of September 2025.

Source: USDA Economic Research Service