Before a month-long pause announced Tuesday by President Trump, Canadian leaders responded to his threat to impose 25 percent tariffs with threats of the same levy on American products like peanut butter. The tit for tat could hurt the Jif plant near downtown Lexington. Mandy Higgins is the executive director of the Lexington History Museum.
“The best smelling plant in Lexington started in 1946 as the W.T. Young Food brands to make Big Top peanut butter. So the first peanuts that were roasted at that spot arrived right before Christmas, 1946.”
Higgins said Proctor and Gamble bought the plant in 1955 and turned the recipe into Jif, then sold the plant to the J.M. Smucker Company in 2001. She said she’s asked about it from time to time.
“When we get visitors, particularly out of towners and sometimes folks who are not even from the United States, they ask what that smell is. And we can tell them, ‘Oh, that's the peanuts that are roasting at the Jif factory.’”
The J.M. Smucker Company did not return emails or calls from WEKU.
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