Peanut butter has landed on South Africa's trade agenda. The country's trade regulator, the International Trade Administration Commission, or ITAC, has recommended raising the customs duty on imported peanut butter from 0.99 cents a kilogram, effectively nothing, to 20% of the product's value. The aim is to shield local manufacturers, who ITAC says have been losing ground to cheaper imports, most of them from India.
Who asked, and what they got
The change traces back to food producer RCL Foods, which applied for the duty and actually wanted a steeper 25%. After investigating, ITAC settled on 20%, saying it strikes a balance between protecting local factories, encouraging local production and keeping the spread affordable for shoppers. Chief Commissioner Ayabonga Cawe said the current set-up was lopsided anyway: raw groundnuts, the nuts peanut butter is made from, already carry a 10% duty, while the finished product slipped in at under a cent a kilogram. Cawe also warned that becoming “totally import-reliant” would leave the country exposed to any disruption in key producer markets like India. ITAC pointed to rising local supply too, noting the 2024/25 groundnut crop came in about 11.6% above the five-year average, with roughly 55% of the country's groundnuts going into peanut butter. To ease the pressure on local processors, it is also opening its own investigation into a temporary break on the duty for imported groundnuts.
A warning to the shops
The regulator is not only handing out protection; it is watching how the industry responds. Cawe cautioned producers and retailers not to treat the new duty as a licence to push up prices, warning that if ITAC sees “a considerable price increase that is not commensurate with underlying production costs,” it will bring in the competition authorities. “We don't want a situation where producers or retailers are pricing into the tariff,” he said, adding that the duty will be reviewed after three years.
For shoppers, the stakes are simple: peanut butter is one of the cheapest sources of protein on the shelf, and about half the local spreads market. Whether it stays affordable now depends on whether local makers and retailers hold their prices, or quietly pass the new tax along.
