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Butter is synonymous with the colour yellow. Butter yellow was the trending colour of 2025. In Mandarin Chinese, the word for butter translates as yellow oil.

By Esther Zweifel of RNZ

So what's with this white butter appearing on our supermarket shelves?

The arrival of a pale, US-sourced butter on Pak'nSave shelves has caused disappointment, confusion, and even some baking fails since it first appeared in March.

On the shelf, Burtfield's & Co Butter is nearly indistinguishable from local equivalents in its 500g paper-wrapped package.

For Sabine John from Warkworth, who accidentally bought some, the US origin label was hard to spot, with "New Zealand" printed three times on the
packaging and "US" only once.

For her, it was the lowest-quality butter she's ever tasted. "It is pale, watery, tastes no good [and] not suitable for spreading."

What's the difference
The yellow colour of butter that comes from grass fed cows, versus the paler comparison of grain fed cow butter.

The most important distinction between this US-sourced product and New
Zealand butter is what the cows are fed.

New Zealand prides itself on its high-quality golden-coloured butter, which
is a result of our cows being grass-fed.

Bex Green, a dairy farmer from Culverden, says New Zealand grass-fed cows produce milk higher in beta-carotene, an antioxidant, that gives it that
yellow colour. Beta-carotene is the compound also found in carrots, and aids
in maintaining night vision.

Grass-fed cows also produce milk higher in omega-3 fatty acids, which have numerous health benefits.

Meanwhile, cattle in the United States are often grain-fed, as is the case
for Burtfield's & Co, meaning the colour of the butter is noticeably paler.

However, Green says the difference is not to do with animal welfare.

"They wouldn't be able to have cows in poor quality [conditions]; otherwise they wouldn't be able to send their milk away. Theirs is just a different
type of feed, and it still produces the same amount of milk. It just might be
a different quality".

Is the flavour different?
Green says the butter produced in New Zealand is known to be creamier,
richer, and simply more buttery.

"That's why we sell so well overseas".

Butter from non-grass-fed cows is comparatively "a bit more bland and not
very nice", she says.

For pastry chef Petra Galler, the taste difference is everything - and she knows butter.

She's the co-owner of bakery and deli Mother in Grey Lynn. "We're on track to go through over a tonne of butter per year".

She describes American butter as tasting "fake".

"It's got f*** all flavour. It's not good."

New Zealand butter, on the other hand; "it's got that mouthfeel. It's this rich, velvety, super creamy, sexy kind of situation".

The percentage of butterfat also contributes to a creamier taste. The higher the fat content, the more expensive - and tastier - the product. That fat content is influenced by grass-feeding cows.

New Zealand food standards require butter to have a minimum of 80% butterfat, with premium brands reaching about 83%.

Why is American butter cheaper than local butter?
Pak'nSave, which is stocking the Burtfields & Co butter, says its stores are selling it "on a short-term basis due to a tactical purchase made when international pricing was materially lower".

NZX Head of Dairy Insights Cristina Alvarado says this will be due to an
excess of stock in the US.

She told Afternoons that in the US, butter is usually a byproduct of other dairy goods, and when there's an excess, exporters will move to offload it as quickly as possible.

Holding surplus stock pushes US domestic prices down, so exporting helps stabilise their market.

"So they'll sell it at a cheaper price just to get rid of the product, and
not keep building their stocks."

New Zealand butter on the other hand is a premium export, central to the country's dairy export strategy, and pricing aligns more with international market value.

Putting it to the test
Social media has been alight with comments about the butter, with
descriptions ranging from tasting like "cheap square cheese in a packet", to "nothing like butter".

With so much controversy, it needed a taste test. I bought a block of the Burtfield's & Co ($6.45) and a block of standard Pams ($7.19) for a fair comparison.

The colour is the most obvious difference: the New Zealand butter is indeed a buttery yellow, the American butter a pale cream.

Slicing into it, the Burtfield's & Co butter was softer out of the fridge
than the Pams, and had a less pronounced buttery smell.

As for the taste, I enlisted my partner for a second opinion, with us both agreeing the New Zealand butter was less salty and slightly richer and more buttery, than the American offering, and generally more preferable.

But as two regular people without particularly refined butter palates, the American stuff did the job, at a reasonable price.

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* Origin: S.W.A.T.S BBS Telnet swatsbbs.ddns.net:2323 (63:10/102)