That’s right! There is no chocolate, or raisins , or anything else besides almonds. Before you declare false advertising and suggest I send Planters a note so that I can get free nuts for life, cool your jets. This is a re-used bag! They were purchased from a corner store with the hope of actually finding real trail mix.
Once we became aware of the true contents of the bag, the store owner was kind enough to pull out cashews and other nuts packaged in the same way. He explained to us that a man, who he claims doesn’t have a number, stops by about once a week to deliver the nuts. His hesitance indicated either confusion on his part as to why we had any interest in who provides nuts or that the arrangement was part of the informal economy. I figure it was probably a little bit of both.
After some thought, here is what I think is the most likely scenario. Planters has a factory, either in the US or somewhere else in the world – could be India or could not be since Planters is not a big distributor here. At this factory there are sometimes mistakes on the assembly line. Our Trail Mix bag, which was very clean and crisp in appearance, also claimed to be “resealable,” which unfortunately it was not. So long story short its possible that the Planters factory(s) sells its faulty packages to an outside dealer, which sells to another dealer, and so on, down the chain finally reaching the the informal nut packager in Delhi. Mind you, I have no proof to back this up and it’s only one of many possible cycles. Could be that the Planters bag was used and discarded, picked up, cleaned, and re-used.
By now you are probably thinking, “How very sanitary.” I’ve been reflecting on standards in India and the US. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with the use of defunct Planters bags for a cheaper market as long as the nuts are still clean. Well I ate them as did friends and not one of us is lying in heap on the floor of a bathroom, so far so good. But who knows that the next package will bring…
