Tag: butter

Butter exports shift in our favor

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

By Will Loux, Senior Vice President, Global Economic Affairs

In an article earlier this year, I asked the question whether the U.S. could export its way out of the glut of cream that had filled the market. I posited that while it would take a while for U.S. exports to start growing in earnest due to the high cost of entry for first-time exporters, the market signals were such that the U.S. would inevitably need to sell more butterfat overseas.

As evidenced by June and July’s export data, that flow of butterfat to international markets has arrived in earnest. June was the U.S.’ largest month of butter exports since 2014, only to be bested just one month later. The U.S. even managed to sell over 2,000 metric tons (MT) of butter to the European Union in July, overcoming a normally cost-prohibitive tariff of 50 cents per pound. The U.S. is also exporting greater volumes of anhydrous milkfat than ever before. In fact, combined exports of butter and anhydrous milkfat (AMF) have grown by more than any other dairy product so far this year on a component-adjusted basis.

The question today is no longer whether the U.S. will export butterfat but rather how much, and can the U.S. become a consistent exporter moving forward?

From a short-term perspective, the path seems clear for the U.S. to sell more butterfat overseas. The U.S. remains highly competitive on price today despite European and New Zealand prices falling. Just as importantly, the U.S. still has plenty of supply available for export despite the surge in exports and solid domestic sales of butter. Simply, the exponential growth in U.S. milkfat tests combined with U.S. dairy herds in expansion mode means the U.S. should have allocation available at an affordable price for international customers for the foreseeable future. While making export spec butter is usually a special run for American manufacturers, U.S. exporters and international buyers are undoubtedly working to get U.S. butterfat products in variety of overseas markets.

Even from a longer-term perspective, there are plenty of reasons to suggest the U.S. could be undergoing a paradigm shift in favor of greater export business for butter and AMF. The fat-to-protein ratio in milk continues to rise, meaning U.S. cheese manufacturers are now faced with more milkfat than required for cheesemaking. Additionally, the rise in ultra-filtered and protein-fortified beverages will also result more cream moving onto the market. Finally, and just as importantly, the recovery in global demand means international buyers are looking for suppliers besides New Zealand and Europe, the latter of whom have been retreating from commodity fat markets within the last several years.

The investment and strategic foresight to position the U.S. as a consistent player in global butterfat markets, will take plenty of time. However, it wouldn’t be the first time the U.S. dairy industry has identified an opportunity, embraced the challenge, and emerged stronger and more resilient for it.

This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on Sept. 15, 2025.

Fake butter is a dairy labeling crock

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

By Christopher Galen, Executive Director, American Butter Institute

Butter continues to be the case study for how real dairy products have been dogged by plant-derived imitators for decades. Where butter is concerned, oleomargarine has been nipping at its heels for nearly 100 years, starting at the dawn of the ultra-processed food era. Margarine use surged after World War II, but in the 21st century, a preference for natural foods and consumer aversion to long ingredient labels has turned the tide, as per capita butter use has grown, while vegetable spreads usage has melted.

But there’s always a new wrinkle to this competition, or, to mix metaphors, old wine in new skins. I’m referring to the Country Crock product made from seed oils (palm and canola, mostly) that doesn’t even meet the legal definition of margarine. Yet its makers have the gall to market this as “dairy free salted butter.” In addition to that highly suspect prominent label description, the Country Crock package includes an image of a traditional red barn associated with dairy farms and employs an image of real butter pats, not their oily impersonators.

This label is a flagrant violation of federal standards of identity, which define butter as a product “made exclusively from milk or cream, or both, with or without common salt, and containing not less than 80% by weight of milkfat.” That’s the clear description of the Code of Federal Regulations, and Congress even passed a Butter Act to further emphasize the point that plant-based imitators don’t fit the butter bill.

This misleading packaging prompted the American Butter Institute (ABI) to fire off a letter this summer to the FDA’s Office of Nutrition and Food Labeling, pressing the agency to either ask Country Crock to correct its label or seek its withdrawal from sale, given its false and misleading label.

Unfortunately, while the FDA was quick to respond to ABI’s complaint, the gist of its response was that it is relying on plant food marketers to police their own practices according to a 2025 FDA guidance indicating that if imitators use the name of a standardized food (butter, in this case), the imitation food should be qualified by its type of plant source. The FDA also wrote to ABI that it looks at the entire context of the label to identify the nature of the food within, to ensure that it is not misleading.

Thus, what’s particularly irritating here is that the label is obviously designed to deceive: apart from the oxymoron of “dairy free salted butter,” it also features a big red barn and silo on its front, while offering only in a very tiny font at the package bottom that it is a “79% plant-based oil spread.” If there is a better illustration of a false and misleading product package, you’d have to search the grocery store for a long time to find one.

I wish I were surprised by this shrug of the shoulders by FDA, but that’s been the consistent pattern for many years regarding things like vegan butter and plant-based butter . . . along with the whole panoply of fake milks, cheeses, ice creams, and yogurts, none of which have a drop of real dairy in them.

So, ABI and the National Milk Producers Federation will continue hammering away at the FDA regulators and ask them to simply do their jobs. We are hoping that the new leadership at FDA will feel compelled to defend food product integrity and help consumers make better choices about real foods — a process that has to start with the label.

This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on July 31, 2025.

NMPF’s Galen Outlines Complaint About Country Crock Fake “Butter”

Posted on by Chris Galen

NMPF’s senior vice president Chris Galen explains for listeners of Dairy Radio Now why the American Butter Institute, which NMPF manages, recently filed a complaint with the Food and Drug Administration about the labeling of Country Crock’s “dairy free butter.” Galen, who is the Executive Director of ABI, says that a plant-based seed oil spread is by law not real butter, and shouldn’t be allowed to disguise itself as such.

Driving Interest From Butter Bombs to Cookies

Posted on by Alan Bjerga

By Christopher Galen, Executive Director, The American Butter Institute

In a year when dairy commodities have been hit hard by slumping prices, butter has remained at the head of the class, barely dipping below $2.50 per pound at the wholesale level and recently rebounding to $2.75 per pound heading into the holiday baking season. Part of the reason for the strong demand, even with high inflation over the past two years, has been the American Butter Institute’s consumer awareness campaign about the value of butter in so many uses.

Our “Go Bold With Butter” campaign — funded mostly through the national dairy checkoff — reminds consumers of how useful butter is compared to plant-based oils and spreads. It also offers new recipes and product use ideas, from butter boards to butter bombs. You’ve probably heard of butter boards; basically, they are party-ready charcuterie trays featuring softened butter rather than meats and cold cuts. Meanwhile, butter bombs are a social media-worthy creation of a hollow sphere of butter filled either with savory ingredients like herbs, which people can melt on a grilled steak, or sweet ingredients like cinnamon sugar, suitable for use on breakfast foods like pancakes.

We also recently started a new consumer education program we’re calling “Butter Bits.” These are digestible snippets of friendly education we are sharing on social media that highlight butter as the solution to everyday cooking and baking challenges. This series of videos will follow a problem-and-solution format in a fast-paced, engaging, and entertaining way.

Since we are approaching the prime Christmas cookie-baking season, one of our regular seasonal promotions is our recipe contest. Each fall, the contest invites consumers to submit as many original cookie recipes as they wish. The “Go Bold With Butter” experts narrow the field of entrants to a few dozen and then bake up a (baker’s) dozen of the finalists to determine the best of that year’s class. The contest is open from now until November 1, and the rules and entry requirements are at www.goboldwithbutter.com.

Butter has clearly won the hearts, minds, and stomachs of many consumers whose preference for real dairy over vegetable spreads in the past generation has forced competitors to start calling their margarines “vegan butter.” But we can’t rest on our laurels: The “Go Bold With Butter” campaign reminds us that even though retail butter prices may rise, the elevated value real butter offers is worth it.

This column originally appeared in Hoard’s Dairyman Intel on September 18, 2023.

Happy Thanksgiving! There’s Plenty of Butter

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

First, the bad news (for consumers): Heading into the holiday baking season, butter prices are, indeed at an all-time high. That’s for a few reasons. The biggest one is simple demand. Americans love butter, with the highest per capita consumption since the 1960s leading to the highest overall demand ever for the nation’s pre-eminent spread and ubiquitous baking ingredient. Overseas markets are also getting in on the act, with another record year for dairy trade possible in 2022.

Meanwhile, butter supplies haven’t, as of yet, been able to keep up with that demand enough to stabilize prices. That’s especially been the case in the past couple months, when retailers traditionally stock up in anticipation of the holidays. And of course, once you get past the actual cost of making butter itself and then add transportation, packaging, labor, and all the other the costs that are making everything else more expensive too, you have a recipe for record butter prices on the grocery shelf. And that’s making consumers (and media) notice.

But are higher prices the same thing as a “shortage”? We posit, not. Are store shelves empty? There’s always some one-off instances somewhere, but with those exceptions, no. Are crowds of consumers lining up for blocks outside local supermarkets to buy out rationed supplies, like early-COVID toilet paper? (Everyone stand six feet apart, please!) No again. And is anyone who wants to buy butter currently being deprived of anything other than $5 should they choose a four-pack, maybe a little extra if it’s extra-creamy European Style?!?? (And often less is you catch a good sale.)

That’s three strikes, and still, no one’s out of butter.

It’s easy to understand the concern: Butter is, after all, nature’s most perfect sandwich spread, the ingredient that makes a top-quality croissant worthy of a nasal-sounding French pronunciation. And even with all this, the underlying concern that’s fueled the “shortage” worries is itself showing signs of fading. Milk production is on the rise again, and with that, butter futures traded on commodities markets are declining. While some product prices rise and stay that way, butter goes up and down. Take a look at this chart — a dozen years of butter-price history that includes both the value of butterfat to a farmer (blue line) and the cost at the grocery store (orange line). See how they move together – and see where the blue line’s expected to go in 2023.

“What goes up, must come down” applies to butter. Production chases prices, and eventually higher production pushes prices down. That’s not always so great for farmers, by the way – and one nice thing for them about current pricing is that it’s helping farmers smooth out a challenging few years and rebuild the balance sheets they need to thrive. So be patient if you’re feeling sticker shock, and in the meantime, feel good that you’re helping a farmer.

But above all, don’t feel like you’re at risk of a butterless Christmas. The food chain, and the law of supply and demand, are ensuring that doesn’t happen. The holidays would be less happy without butter, but it just ain’t gonna happen. So Happy Thanksgiving. And here’s to, um, butter days ahead.

Butter and Cheese Keep Dairy’s Rise Constant

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

While we won’t know until Friday whether U.S. per-capita dairy consumption will officially rise for the seventh time in eight years, we do know from preliminary data that domestic use of butter and cheese reached records in 2021. Then again, that’s far from a surprise.

  

Though other dairy products have had their ups and downs (mostly up), for the past decade butter and cheese have been Old Reliables, with neither ever seeing consumption decline a single time. Their rising popularity has offset drops in fluid-milk consumption (the typical, and inaccurate, trope that anti-dairy activists use to pronounce “death” upon the industry) and is a big part of the industry’s continued success and bright future.

Dairy, as an industry, is in constant evolution, from advances in science to innovations in sustainability. But throughout, “bring on the butter” and “more cheese, please” have been continual refrains.  The data shows it, and there’s no reason think those words won’t echo for years to come.