Peanuts and peanut butter are popular in Canada. According to a 2010 survey of Canadian consumers, nine out of ten (92 per cent) keep peanuts, peanut butter or both in their house. The average Canadian eats 2.7 kg of peanuts per year!
Canada is the largest single country importer of U.S. peanuts. More than 80 per cent of the peanuts consumed in Canada are obtained from a choice of 25,000 growers from the United States.
The Canadian climate isn't very conducive to growing peanuts, which require sandy soil and hot dry weather. The total amount of peanuts farmed in Canada may be as small as a couple hundred tons -- compared to shipments of all peanut products to Canada at 87,640 metric tonnes in 2009.
The popularity of the peanut can be traced back to George Washington Carver, the American botanist who found more than 300 uses for it.