We’ve reviewed and compared butter for 2022.
What’s your preferred brand?
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Very revealing as to where the value is to be found. We mostly purchase Woolworths salted and unsalted. Many of the brands assessed are not available locally.
It’s interesting to divide the percentage point score by the rrp in dollars.
One Woolworths brand product would rate 17.25% or points per dollar value.
One of the top scoring butters rates less than 10% per dollar.
For those of us who use block butter for cooking sparingly, is it more likely we can taste the value, and not the difference in flavour? 
For the larger store brands is there any assurance that over time or by locality they may vary their source factories. IE todays flavour may not be the same tomorrow?
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There are two questions for me. One, whether I can really tell the difference between $2.40 per 100g and $1.20 per 100g butter or a $20 bottle of wine from a $40. And two, if I really can is it worth paying double?
For wine many of us drink labels. Is it the same for butter?
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Our regular butter didn’t get tested. Black and Gold salted, product of New Zealand, packed for Metcash Australia and supplied to IGA, Foodworks and independent shops.
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As a former Tasmanian dairy farmer I am constantly appalled at the number of people who buy butter made overseas because it is cheap. Australian butter is amongst the best in the world - just look at the pallid colour of the European butters. The cows there are fed grains, especially during the severe winters when they are enclosed 24/7, not like the Australian cows that are fed on fresh, green grass, giving our butters that beautiful rich yellow colour. Even the cheapest of the cheap supermarket Australian-made butters is a better product than the imported butters, and then of course, there are the food miles to be considered. Who is subsidising these imported butters so that they are cheaper than a locally produced item?
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For the butter that Choice tested the average price per 100g was $2.12 for Australian and $2.30 for imported. So for this group the imports are not cheaper.
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Pepe saya…
The panelists only liked supermarket brands. Which is disappointing.
I
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I grew up eating Kerrygold and was delighted to find it in the supermarket here. So much more flavour than the mainstream Australian brands in my opinion.
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We all enjoy some home felt luxury, $24/kg in a 250gm pack from Woolies. My preference might be a more Aussie Western Star Chefs Choice at $14/kg in a 500gm pack at Woolies. “Spread in moderation”, choose wisely, statins can also be expensive.
Woolies are not the only retailer of either brand, and it pays to shop around. There is also the possibility 500gm packs of KerryGold might offer better value.
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Interesting that there is no reduced salt category. There’s salted and unsalted, but the middle ground has been left out. We have bought reduced salt butter for years for general use, unsalted for cooking.
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No but some particular products are low salt.
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Ah, but my comment was not specific to the tested butters. Many of the supermarket cheap butters are from New Zealand. Coles has two levels of supermarket brand butter - one is imported and the other isn’t and the imported version was not included in the test. Needless to say the imported butter is cheaper in spite of the food miles. Woolworths supermarket brand is also imported.
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Any numbers?
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Coles Australian butter - $4.30 for 250g ($1.72/100g). Contains salt, just your everyday butter
Coles salted butter (product of New Zealand) - $3.70 for 250g ($1.48/100g)
Coles unsalted butter (product of New Zealand) - $3.70 for 250g
Coles unsalted Australian butter - $4.30 for 250g
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Woolworths offers ‘essentials’ or ‘Australian’ home branded butters. The first is NZ product, the second obviously not. Unless anything has changed NZ dairy products especially their ice creams always seemed so much nicer than our local product.
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I have currently got the Westgold Salted butter and I quite like it but it is more expensive than the Coles which I also like.
Please pass on to the people who write this up, that the photos are reversed. Red is for salted and Green for unsalted. It might change the ratings.
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I am still not seeing any evidence of specific subsidies or a widespread trend of imported butters being cheaper than locally grown.
We seem to have both Coles and Woolies packed NZ butter is cheaper than the Oz equivalent. I don’t see any named brands following that trend. The EU is known to use subsidies but NZ is not. NZeders seem rather proud of not subsidising dairy. This is such a narrow slice of the market there could be all kinds of odd reasons for the discrepancy. There are some articles that address the issue but they are paywalled 
As for European butter I cannot say if it is better or worse than Oz but it isn’t cheaper overall despite any subsidies that may exist.
