Canadians say butter has been getting harder and harder–but what’s behind the change in consistency?

HALIFAX – It’s being called “butter gate”: hundreds of consumers in Canada are crying foul on the dairy industry for using palm oil supplements in cow feed and it’s allegedly changing the consistency and quality of the butter they’re buying.

It isn’t 100 per cent confirmed palm oil is the culprit behind the change in butter’s melt or spread-ability says, food economist Sylvain Charlebois. But there is a consensus among many Canadians that the butter is harder than usual.

“Many Canadians have actually noticed that the quality of their dairy products has changed,” said Charlebois, director of the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

“When butter destroys your toast in the morning that’s a problem.”

Charlebois says palm oil supplementation in cow feed is being explored as one of the reasons behind the recent change in our butter’s texture.

Charlebois says with more people at home baking during the pandemic, there has been a surge in butter demand.

And even though using palm oil in cow feed is completely legal, he says many consumers were never aware of the practice and may have hard feelings over the lack of transparency from the dairy industry more so than with the harder butter on their shelf.

“As soon as you start hearing something like palm oil, people don’t necessarily marry the ingredient will with the blue cow image. Purity, sustainability, local. Palm oil comes from across the world and I think that’s why people are upset regardless if palmitic acids are the culprit or not,” he said.

Quebec dairy cooperative Agropur has asked dairy farmers to stop using palm oil derivates in dairy cow feed. A statement sent to CityNews by the Dairy Farmers of Canada says farmers across the country have listened to consumer’s concerns about palm by-products in their feed.

“In light of these concerns, Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) had previously announced the formation of a working group of experts to assess current scientific literature, identify gaps in information, and look into issues that have been raised by consumers,” reads the statement.

However, that leaves Charlebois with more questions, like why this is only being explored publicly now when the practice of using palm oil additives in cow feed has been occurring for years.

“There’s no data–I mean the industry should have actually looked into this matter a long time ago, but it didn’t,” he said.