MILWAUKEE —

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To Betsy Sanders, the nationwide salmonella outbreak tied to peanut butter has been a violent gale. Her tiny cookie dough business is the debris.

Reimbursing customers for recalled products has already cost her Dough-To-Go Inc. function in the sort proportion that much as $7,000, she says - a big chunk for a company that turned slender profit last year. She too has 2,500 pounds of peanut butter that she can’t conversion to an act inasmuch as it came from Peanut Corp. of America - the company that was the source of the outbreak and that has since filed in spite of insolvency aegis.

“We’re the victim, too,” said Sanders, who started the business off an idea her son had at vale of years 12. “We’ve accomplished nothing wrong and we’re doing everything we can to gain sure everyone’s safe.”

With at least nine deaths suspected of being tied to the outbreak, hundreds of people sickened and thousands of products recalled, companies from name brands like Kellogg Co. down to unintelligent ones like Dough-To-Go be the subject of been affected. But during the time that big companies gain equally large public relations departments, smaller ones have limited budgets and fewer ways to cope.

The timing could hardly be worse, since the recession has already crimped how a great deal of people are spending.

Sanders, who has run the Santa Clara, Calif.-based business for 26 years with her son, said she’s worried about the moiety of her sales - which reached a aggregate of $1.7 million last year - that come from drill groups like the PTA or marching bands for fundraisers that help pay for uniforms and school trips.

The crown selling season for that starts next month. But parents could be leery of buying anything at all with peanut butter.

The explosion has already constrained the maker of Detour energy bars, Forward Foods LLC, to toothed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Minden, Nev.-based company plans to stay in business but needs circulating medium to pay to replace recalled products.

Meanwhile, even companies that didn’t have to recall products still be favored with plenty to worry one’s self about.

Jarred peanut butter sales have been tumbling, so much as though that category has generally not been involved in the recalls. In the four weeks ending Jan. 24, about 33.8 million pounds of peanut butter in jars were sold - a 22 percent drop from the same period last year.

It’s too soon to tell, whether those kinds of declines are because stores are pulling items off the shelves or because consumers are turning away from peanut butter products, aforesaid Todd Hale, senior vice president for consumer and shopper insights at Nielsen.

“Generally speaking, any time we have a scare like this, there are probably more manufacturers that are hurt than should be,” he said.

Original text: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2008797156_appeanutbuttersmallbusinesses.html?syndication=rss