Volunteers Turning Recalled Peanut Butter into Water Donations

United Food Bank Volunteers helping maximizing donations to help feed Arizona.

MESA, AZ– Volunteers going above and beyond is something we see every day at United Food Bank. We had several volunteers who took action when the JIF Peanut Butter recall was issued in May by turning all our many donated Peanut Butter Jars from food drives into much-needed water.

Kudos to three United Food Bank Volunteer Leaders, Kristin, Pat and Gerri. During a recent food sort they watched the jars of Peanut Butter pile up that were headed to the garbage due to a Jif PB recall in May. They took the initiative and decided they were going to collect all the recalled jars and return them to grocery stores for reimbursement. Safeway, Albertsons and Walmart traded recalled jar after recalled jar for gift cards, which the ladies then used to buy water bottles for the Mesa Hydration Drive and then deliver the cases of water to United Food Bank.

There were countless hours & trips back and forth from the grocery store to the food bank. These innovative and selfless volunteers were able to turn all of our donated recalled peanut butter jars into over 5,000 bottles of water. “We called ourselves the Peanut Butter Brigade,” says Volunteer Leader Gerri. “We really just wanted to help out. When we saw all the recalled jars of peanut butter we thought why not return it? And so we did.”

JIF initiated a voluntary recall back in May of 2022 of specific jars of peanut butter. At United Food Bank, we keep a close eye on recalls to ensure that we catch any food recalls that may have been donated through food drives. Peanut Butter is one of our “most needed” items and we had a lot of peanut butter jars that we had to pull out during food sorting because of the recall. Even after grocery stores stopped issuing reimbursements for returned jars, we had a big pile left to return. The “Peanut Butter Brigade” contacted JIF and JIF is sending a reimbursement for those remaining jars. As the Peanut Butter Brigrade ladies retire from their recall returning duties, we salute them for helping make a difference returning close to 300 jars of peanut butter. We are also grateful to Walmart, Safeway & Albertsons and JIF for helping get those reimbursements to turn that Peanut Butter into water.

“A BIG thank you to these volunteers for taking things to a new level,” says Scott Kooiman, a United Food Bank Board Member. “It made me so thrilled to hear about the innovative and outside the box thinking of turning recalled peanut butter into water donations. Most people would have seen the recalled peanut butter and just thrown it away. These ladies took the initiative to return it to the store and use the credit for something that will literally help save lives this summer.”

Sometimes making a difference is as simple as returning a few or a few hundred jars of peanut butter.