What we talk about when we talk about butter
On cake baking, generic brands and the global market.
Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to The Boil Up, The Spinoff’s weekly food newsletter.
On Friday, I bought a block of butter from New World Mt Roskill: Pams Pure Butter, $6.49 for 500g. It’s a food so crucial that I never let it run out, adding it to the shopping list as soon as the block gets a little small.
Earlier that week, on Monday August 5th, Emily Francis of Sunday the Bakery bought the same brand from Pak’nSave Māngere for $5.49. When she returned the very next day for more (the perils of being a cake maker), the price had risen by almost 15% to $6.29. That same day, RNZ published an article on the varying costs of butter across Tāmaki Makaurau, reporting a “massive discrepancy between different suburbs… with some in lower socio-economic areas paying the higher price.” While this is disturbing information (if unsurprising, at a time when being poor is actively punished), I couldn’t help but trip over the fact that this article used Anchor butter as their yardstick. Are people really out here buying name-brand butter? In this economy?
Over the next few days, I asked everyone: What butter do you buy? I was aghast to learn that some people I consider friends don’t buy butter at all, but for normal, butter-loving denizens, the answer was the same: the cheapest. At Pak’nSave or New World, that’s your Pams, at Woolworths it’s usually Alpine, and for those who are brave and have a Costco card, it’s Kirkland (the lowest price of all at $8.99 a kilo, as of last night). Given all of these options are produced in Aotearoa, some even made in the same factories as name-brands, it’s safe to assume the differences are negligible. I messaged a few more bakers and even the connoisseurs agreed: all NZ butter is good butter.
In writing this newsletter, I have travelled down all kinds of rabbit holes, learned that Aotearoa is the highest consumer of butter in the world, that Fonterra made around 24 billion dollars last year, and that local farmers stand to profit from the dairy giant’s proposed sale of its consumer brands, including beloved brands like Fresh’n Fruity, Kāpiti, Mainland and Primo, while everyday consumers may see further price hikes (although Scoop reckons it’s the cosy relations between Fonterra, Goodman Fielder and our supermarket duopoly that keeps the price of butter high).
However, the question I keep returning to is about us, the local shoppers wanting to butter our toast and bake a tray of beautiful layered scones. Aotearoa is the eighth largest milk producer in the world, producing around 21 billion litres of milk each year. 95% of that milk is exported, leaving just 5% for us milk-drinking kiwis. Given the environmental impacts of dairy farming at this scale are actively harming the country we call home, should we be paying global market prices for milk and butter?
This isn’t a question I have an answer to, but it’s one I keep seeing asked indirectly. Last week, after raging against exorbitant butter costs in her Instagram stories, cake goddess Petra Galler of @butterbutternz shared a gorgeous butter-free cake recipe dedicated to Fonterra. Eat NZ CE Angela Clifford aka @thefoodfarmnz also took to Instagram to question both the cost of butter and the two block buying limits being imposed in some supermarkets due to “stock shortages” – this, in a country that produces around 475 metric tonnes of butter a year.
Of course, this is a question that spreads far beyond butter; it’s really about the alienation and greed that is baked into a global market economy. When we talk about the cost of butter, we’re really talking about the cost of everything, the stripping away of everyday luxuries that make life delicious.
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Weekly bites
In related news, Foodstuffs North Island has been fined $3.25 million for deliberate and serious blocking of competitors. The company – which last year netted $44.9m in profit – was taken to court by the Commerce Commission after learning they had been using land covenants to stop rivals from entering local markets. A spokesperson for Foodstuffs North Island has said that the company did not intend to act unlawfully and has accepted the penalty.
Rinda-branded pineapple flavoured lollies laced with “potentially lethal levels” of meth have been inadvertently distributed via food parcels from Auckland City Mission. Three people – a child, a teenager and a charity worker – were taken to hospital after ingesting the lollies but have since been discharged. It is likely some of the lollies are still in circulation – so if you are anyone you know has received a Mission parcel recently, don’t sample a lolly, call the police.
I challenge you to read Alex Smith’s article exploring our national love of sushi and not find yourself salivating for a salmon nigiri. It’s a strange tale of a Japanese delicacy arriving from Los Angeles, New York and London, rather than from the much-closer original source, of Korean immigration to the US and to Aotearoa, and it answers the question of how St Pierres became so entrenched in our lunchtime zeitgeist.
Coming soon: Takeout Kids season two
Coming-of-age documentary series Takeout Kids returns next week for season two, centred on the lives of five young people growing up between the classroom, home and their parents’ shops. Episode one premieres Tuesday August 20 on The Spinoff. Made with the support of NZ On Air.
Snack Review
Granny Goose Tortillos Cheese 100g $2.10 from Jadan Supermarket, Mt Roskill
I’m not sure why I thought a snack called Tortillos wouldn’t be corn chips, but here we are. The packaging did tell me they were “cheese flavoured corn snacks,” and that they were “rolled extra thin for extra flavour” – all hints that they were, in fact, corn chips – and still, I expected something else. Maybe something with a puffy texture? Little tortillas puffed up like puri?
As it turns out, Tortillos are tiny, circular corn chips covered in a chemical-forward cheese-flavoured powder – nothing too crazy here, but nothing too good either. I know these are a beloved Filipino childhood snack, but without the nostalgia factor, these just taste overly artificial and not as crispy as I like my corn chips to be (perhaps they are stale?) and although cute, the size would also become an issue if I wanted to, say, scoop up some guacamole. On the positive list, Granny Goose is an incredible name and mascot for a bag of chippies – you’ll look a lot cooler hooning these than Doritos. 4/10
Mā te wā,
Lucinda
Thanks for the great article. It's frustrating, it seems to me that whenever business leaders talk about economic improvement or growth it's always directly linked to increasing the depletion of our country's natural resources (and passing on the cost to the government, that is -NZers), or levels of inequality. At times it seems like profit isn't even the primary concern.
"Nothing butters better than butter", they said, when margarine showed up here in force in the early 70s. I do wonder how big dairy will adapt to the increasing use of weight loss drugs in export markets. Going to take more than a clever slogan.
https://www.scalenz.com/post/weight-loss-drugs-to-hit-nz-meat-and-dairy-exports