So we’re suffering a butter crisis. Who’d have thought?
I’m not an economist, (I still think Manolo Blahnik represents good value, HaHa) but we sit and watch major supermarket chains screw down the profits of milk farmers in order to supply cut-price milk, forcing many farmers to leave the land, then we have a milk and butter crisis.
So does the baking industry turn to France and Europe for their butter. No, because they’re also having a crisis.
“Butter makes it better” - the advertising catch cry of early 80s has never been more poignant.
In France, where shoppers can have a choice from as many as 21 different brands/kinds of butter, including beurre au piment d'Espelette and butter blended with chocolate chips (?), the average man, woman and child eats more than 7 kg butter per year, twice as much as in any other country of the EU and twice as much as the quantity of margarine eaten. In Australia, in 2009 (latest stats I could find) margarine accounts for 56% of sales of all 'spreads', with butter and butter blends each representing 22% of sales.
Thank you, Barbara, for these interesting statistics. And can we assume that more Australians have moved over to butter?