Australian supermarket peanut butter taste test: it’s better when it’s cheaper

‘It seems as though every extra dollar spent only brings dryness … hard-to-mix oil pools and less flavour’: Nicholas Jordan on his findings after taste testing 13 supermarket peanut butters. Photograph: Isabella Moore/The Guardian

I’ve had many arguments about peanut butter. The biggest one was with a friend who insisted the best version of peanut butter was 100% peanuts blended without salt or sugar. The argument was so impassioned it led to us buying eight jars of peanut butter and blind-testing them all, that afternoon.

That was three years ago. Since then I have lived my life under the understanding that – for the same reason people opt for strawberry jam instead of mashed-up raw strawberries on toast – peanut butter can and should taste different to plain peanuts. It should be salty, potentially sweet, jammed with flavour and easy to spread. Otherwise, it is just blended peanuts – there is no “butter”.