Jenn Holtaway removes 60 jars of Peter Pan peanut butter from the pantry at The Pelathe Center. The peanut butter has been linked to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened almost 300 people across the country. Holtaway, an intern at the center, separated the bad peanut butter from the good Thursday at the food pantry, 1423 Haskell Ave.

Clarence Seaver thought his Great Value peanut butter tasted funny.

“He said he didn’t think it tasted right,” Lucy Seaver said of her husband. “I tasted it and thought it tasted all right.”

After eating about a quarter of the jar, the McLouth couple fed it to their dog.

Then, Thursday morning they learned that ConAgra Foods Inc. had issued a warning that people should throw out jars of Great Value and Peter Pan peanut butter that have a product code on the lid beginning with 2111, which denotes the plant where it was made.

The Seavers’ jar lid contained the code.

According to federal investigators, the suspect peanut butter was produced by ConAgra at its only peanut butter plant in Sylvester, Ga.

Neither Clarence Seaver nor his dog became sick, but the first U.S. salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter has sickened nearly 300 people in 39 states, including Kansas.

Salmonella symptoms include diarrhea, fever, dehydration, abdominal pain and vomiting.

Six cases reported in Kansas since October have been linked to the peanut butter, said Mike Heideman, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

Although he didn’t know specific locations, Heideman said they had been reported in scattered areas.

No salmonella cases have been reported to the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, a spokesman said.

Lawrence food pantry operators were scrambling Thursday to check codes on their peanut butter jars.

The Salvation Army pantry, 946 N.H., pulled 111 jars, said Donnie Hornberger, community relations director.

“Most of what we had was Peter Pan,” Hornberger said.

At the Pelathe Community Resource Center, 1423 Haskell Ave., 60 jars had to be thrown out, said Jenn Holtaway, a social work intern. She said the pantry had been closed for a month for renovation and just reopened last week.

“Peanut butter is hard to come by in a pantry on a normal day,” Holtaway said. “We get so many canned vegetables and macaroni, but we usually don’t get peanut butter unless we ask.”

Lawrence grocery stores also were checking their stocks.

Managers at Checkers Foods and Hy-Vee Food Stores said they removed jars of peanut butter with the 2111 code.

Stan Thompson, manager of store operations at the Hy-Vee on Clinton Parkway, said he was waiting to hear from ConAgra about what to do with the peanut butter.

“Once they figure it out, they’ll either tell us to destroy it or they’ll pick it up or we’ll put it back on the shelf,” he said.

FDA inspectors visited the now shut-down plant Wednesday and Thursday to try to pinpoint where the contamination could have happened. The FDA last inspected the plant in 2005.

ConAgra spokesman Chris Kircher said the company randomly tests 60 to 80 jars of peanut butter that come off its Sylvester plant’s line each day for salmonella and other germs, and “we’ve had no positive hits on that going back for years.”

Most cases were reported in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri. About 20 percent of people who became sick were hospitalized, and there were no deaths, the CDC said.

-The Associated Press contributed information to this story.