Butter Prices On The West Coast....Why

[rsmith6621]

....are they going through the roof?

On month ago 4 stick of Darigold butter pack $2.78....today the cheap generic brand is $4.25.

This is in Seattle.

Any clues?

[Jim Beard]

1. Should be going down

all grain prices have reverted to low prices of 10 years ago. Beef cattle are still high because buyers still see a small supply replacement mother cows is low. Dairy prices are set by "Marketing Pools" and that determines prices foe Dairy products in a given area.

[Brother Buzz]

2. There's a spike in ice cream consumption....

and caused a cream shortage. The market will adjust soon.

[procon]

3. Yesterday it was $4.78

and that price was the same for every brand from national to regional and local labels. Maybe the store might be manipulating prices? I was surprised that butter was so high because other dairy products I bought like sour cream and cottage cheese were lower than normal.

[shanti]

4. yes i have noticed that

butter lover that i am...the cheaper stuff was $3.49 (in a 1lb block), but the store i shop at was touting the 3.99 tillamook brand as a "special".

[MissB]

5. Costco is holding steady.

$9 for 4 lbs. - in Oregon anyway, don't know about Washington but I figured we are pretty close.

My mother lives in Washington and was noting the cost of butter at the grocery store recently. Could it be only a state of Washington thing? Or maybe Costco is artificially holding down the price.

[QED]

9. Not just Washington

same thing here in Arizona

[BlueJazz]

6. This sounds just like you Socialist Liberals. First you want 15.00 an hour for the cows..

...and then complain because the price goes up. Think of the calves.

[mainer]

7. Maybe because this book has suddenly become hot:

The author was recently on the Commonwealth Club broadcast on NPR, talking about how much healthier Americans were when we ate butter, meat, and cheese.


http://www.amazon.com/Big-Fat-Surprise-butter-healthy-ebook/dp/B00A25FDUA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412641178&sr=8-1&keywords=the+big+fat+surprise

[madokie]

11. I'm a butter lover

and if its sweet you're talking about give me sugar too, f* all that made in a chemical factory shit

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. Yup...we went back to butter instead of margarine.

I fry certain things in it, like mushrooms, and onions, and for sure eggs.
For meats I use lard..good old fashioned lard.

[madokie]

14. Its lard for me too

the better restaurants use lard and thats their secret ingredient for why their food taste so good
I live from morel season to morel season. sauté in butter, mmmm gooooood. My wife likes to lightly dust them with floor then the hot butter bath, damn good that way too.

[phylny]

13. Thanks for pointing this out.

I need to lose weight and I'm on Weight Watchers, BUT I've decided to have my "points" using protein, good fat (and I include butter in that category) and low carbs (trying to stay away from rice, cereal, bread, etc.) I am now frying my eggs in a teaspoon of butter and having olive oil on my salad at lunch. Let me tell you, I'm not as hungry and I'm still losing weight. We haven't used margarine in years.

Edited to add that I'm also having vegetables and no fruit - it stunts my weight loss.

[JEFF9K]

8. Butter prices.

Maybe they are factoring-in the costs associated with the health problems caused by butter.

[cally]

10. I know many ranchers in California are reducing herds due to drought

Can't afford to feed and water them.

[SheilaT]

15. I stopped using margarine about 40 years ago.

Even then I could read stuff that indicated it simply wasn't as good as butter.

I find that when I eat real food, properly fixed, it is so flavorful that I simply don't need to eat as much. Plus, I can't just gobble down the good food. It forces me to slow down and savor what I'm eating.

[Jenoch]

16. Also, not until recent years did the U.S.

actually export butter. Now, about 15% of U.S. butter is exported. The recent price spike is probably more of a local thing however. Where I live, butter is about $2.49 and $1.99 on sale.

[BlueSpot]

17. 2012 Drought

The poor corn harvest that fall led to high feed corn prices. Most of the effect was felt in 2013 since harvest is in the fall. As a result, ranchers culled their herds to lowest levels since like 1950-something (IIRC). It's why meat is so ridiculously expensive now too. I assume it had a similar impact on dairy herds. We had a decent harvest last year and prices fell some. We're looking at a record harvest this year (over 14 billion bushels). Because of that, feed corn prices are currently super low so ranchers will likely expand their herds. But it takes a while to grow from a calf to a milk producer - or so I would guess (cow maturation rates are definitely not my specialty!). However long that takes, if you wanted to look it up, should give you an idea of when your butter prices will come back down.

It's not really all that simple and other things come into play - like EPA considering lowering the ethanol blending requirement due to lower gasoline consumption in the U.S., fertilizer prices, and so on. But current corn prices are lower than they've been in years and that will impact the size of herds, the number of acres planted in corn in 2015, etc.

[zappaman]

18. One day we will look back on the great butter shortage of 2014

and realize it was the beginning of the end.