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Kerrygold is marketed as grass-fed and all-natural, but the tub butter has concerning ingredients, dangers and marketing ploys to consider before buying.
Kerrygold, without question, is probably one of the best store butters you can buy. I myself have been using it for years for cooking.
The milk is from grass-fed cows and even though the cream used to make Kerrygold Butter is pasteurized, it is the best choice available to most folks who do not have access to raw butter from a small farm or who simply don’t want to use their precious raw butter for cooking.
I also know that many of you out there use Kerrygold too. When I conducted a Butter Poll on this blog awhile back, by far the most used butter (out of 1,500 or so total votes) was Kerrygold which received way more votes than even Organic Valley butter.
So what’s the problem?
My husband brought home the “new” Kerrygold butter the other day. On the surface, it looked fine. Nowhere on the outside of the package was there any indication that there was a problem with this butter. Here’s what it looks like.
I got suspicious with the “new” label, however. There’s nothing “new” about butter. That’s what I like about it after all!
Another tip-off that there was a problem lurking was the proclamation on the label that this “New Kerrygold” was “naturally softer”.
When I first saw the “naturally softer” words, I thought that meant that the butter was whipped and hence more spreadable. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want air whipped into my butter. This is a surefire way to get less product and get charged the same price for the privilege if you know what I mean.
I made a mental note to tell my husband not to buy this butter again because it was whipped and not as good a value.
But then, it got way worse…
Is Kerrygold Butter Grass-fed?
I took off the lid to the new Kerrygold package and saw the following words:
I had become a victim of the Big Fast One!
Kerrygold is stealthily selling LOWFAT butter and guess what? You get to pay the same price for the cheaper quality!
NOWHERE on the outside of the label did it say that the butter was low-fat. The ingredients said simply: pasteurized cream and salt the same as the commercialized Amish butter at the supermarket.
I daresay that this marketing ploy will be fooling a lot of folks who desire to buy full-fat grass-fed butter.
It seems that some butter brands have adopted what companies making substitutes for butter have been doing for years.
I have become very tuned in to these labeling tricks and manufacturer games over the years. When it comes to packaging, I double-check the ingredients along with the manufacturing processes every few months. This is even for products that I’ve been buying for years.
But how many people really do this?
Ingredient Bait and Switch
You NEED to be doing this!
Manufacturers are changing ingredients and packaging all the time! The primary intent of these “improvements” is to increase product sales and profitability. Your health is, sadly, of little to no concern in the grand scheme of things.
Reducing the fat content in its butter will skyrocket profits for Kerrygold as they will make the same per unit for the butter and yet be able to sell the skimmed cream to other companies to make ice cream or whatnot thereby increasing revenue substantially.
If you buy Kerrygold, I’m not telling you to stop buying it. I’m only telling you to beware of this new packaging nonsense and be sure what you buy is what you intend: full-fat butter!
By the way, if you are wondering why I love full-fat butter, you might want to educate yourself on the low-fat scam by learning about the history of butter vs margarine in the United States.
As for me, I will be returning this product to the store for a full refund. It is falsely advertised after all. I had no way of knowing it was a low-fat product until I opened it.
Manufacturer Response
I received this email from Kerrygold following the widespread sharing of this article. I find it very hard to believe that my blog suddenly brought this packaging error to their attention.
Do they have NO ONE on the production line in charge of quality control? This was not a difficult problem to identify. Could we have a bit of spin going on here? Perhaps so.
Dear Sarah,
Your blog has brought to our attention a packaging error of which we were unaware. While Kerrygold does sell a Reduced Fat & Sodium Butter the pack you show on your blog is 100% full fat butter which has been packed with the incorrect inner seal. There is no deliberate intent on our part to mislead our valued consumers or to misrepresent our product although we regret the confusion this is clearly creating.
We are working to identify how much product has been released into the market with the incorrect packaging so that we can replace it as soon as possible. In the meantime we would appreciate your assistance in clarifying the misunderstanding to your readers. We would love to provide further clarity — our email is [email protected] — and we are happy to answer any specific questions you and your readers may have in relation to the product.
With thanks & regards,
The Kerrygold Team
Why I No Longer Buy Kerrygold
I wanted to let all of you know that I no longer buy even the traditional Kerrygold brick butter in foil packaging. Why? A good friend visited Ireland and traveled extensively to a number of grass-based dairy farms.
This credible source told me that while the cows that provide cream for the Kerrygold butter are definitely on pasture and hence “grass-fed”, they receive supplemental GMO animal feed as well especially during the winter months. The local community and citizenry in Ireland concur and will tell you as much if you are in the area.
So, the word on the street is that Kerrygold is not legitimately pastured either.
Butter from cows that get GMO feed introduces the very real possibility of Roundup residue in the butter.
Thanks but no thanks!
While I have not been able to confirm this story 100%, I trusted the credibility of the information enough to permanently switch to another brand (I currently use this one).
I use this butter for cooking in addition to the homemade pastured raw butter I make for non-cooking purposes.
I also no longer recommend Kerry Gold in my Shopping Guide.
What about Organic Valley butter as an alternative to Kerry Gold? While I am not happy about Organic Valley’s policy that disallows member farmers to sell raw milk on the side to their community (treating them more like medieval serfs than the independent business owners that they are), I find this less onerous than deceptively feeding animals GMO feed without clearly informing the end consumer.
Is anyone familiar with bovine leukemia virus? Apparently, most dairy herds have it. Wondering about organic and grass fed herds.
Organic Valley where Milk is Ultra Pasteurized to 280 degrees. Yum… that Fresh Cooked Flavor. Anyone know what temperature water boils at? Hmmm.
I usually purchase Kerry Gold butter because I like its flavor over US brands that are very greasy and flavorless at room temperature. Kerry Gold reminds me of what US butter was like long ago before many US products became so compromised.
Thank you for informing the public. I looked at Organic Valley website and here is a copy of their definitions:
“Pasture-raised animals graze certified organic pasture whenever weather permits and receive supplemental grain rations”.
“100% grass-fed animals receive only fresh pasture and dried forages, like hay. They may consume supplements as needed, but never receive grain rations”.
Furthermore, Organic Valley now has a new product called “Grassmilk” which is milk from 100% grass-fed animals.
It seems to me that the term “Pasture Raised” leaves the door wide open for mixing grass fed with grain fed. Here is Valley Organic clarification:
“Pasture-raised animals receive a significant portion of their nutrition from organically managed pasture and stored dried forages. Unlike 100% grass-fed cows, pasture-raised cows may receive supplemental organic grains, both during the grazing season and into winter months.”
So, as a consumer who is looking for healthiest product it seems to me that Kerrygold would be the better choice because keeps the grains out. But now I read about possible additives to Kerrygold butter, bringing me to this question:
How much of grass is out there that would allow all Kerrygold’s cows in Ireland to produce all these butter that is sold all around the world? It seems to me if a product is sold all over the world at low prices and huge quantities, can’t be all natural.
We never actuall bought into the Kerry Gold Butter to begin with. We order our butter directly from Minerva Dairy. Their butter maintains a 84% butter Fa that is better than the 82% that Kerry Gold claims to begin with. The service we recieve from the dairy is fantastic. My wife being a food blogger and a excellent chef swears by the product. She no longer has any problems with her baking ithe the store bought butters. I have zero to gain from stating this, no affiliation what so ever, we receive no free products or compensation of any kind, not a single penny. Just passing on the best butter we have ever had. This is like the butter we grew up with as kids, you will not be dissapointed.
My husband and I noticed that the K/G had issues. We noth grew up on farms. I molked cows as a kid growing up. Butter is not yellow like the gold foil package . It is white as real cream . They are not only using oil with the icky aftertaste but using coloring to make it yellow. Very deceitful to customers. I see it as if they cheat in one product they will more than likely cheat in all of their products. My daughter buys it because she thinks its healthy. Tired of being scammed.
I do not find that wording anywhere in my package.
I began buying Keerygold Butter (8 oz foil package) several years ago and starting to use it every day as a healthy source of dairy. It was a good price at Walmart. However, at some point, I noticed something odd. It was just a little too soft with no strong butter smell or taste. Then my husband, who has a nightly snack of buttered toast, told me he didn’t like KG butter and was not going to eat it anymore. He said it had no taste and was very oily. I took a bite of his toast and he was so right. I checked the foil label for the ingredients. Then I saw it, the words that never should have been listed on the package for this product, “NOT A SIGNIFICANT SOURCE OF TRANS FAT”!! This means only one thing, vegetable oils (the only source of trans fat) were added to this product! However, they do not have to list it as long as it is under a specified amount. You may also see Trans Fat 0.0 listed. I cut 2 pieces of butter, 1 from KG, the 2nd from Organic Valley. The KG butter showed a puddle of clear oil with a few yellow solids in the center; the OV real melted butter was an evenly solid yellow and did not separate. Kerrygold Butter is a fraud! Consumers must be viligent and read labels. Just another example of food conglomerates destroying our health with toxic ingredients for profit and greed. I tossed my supply of Kerrygold, all five 8 oz packages, in the garbage. I suggest you all do the
same! Consuming multiple foods daily, which were allowed to contain what is considered insignificant amounts of trans fat known to destroy health, is not acceptable. NO AMOUNT OF TRANS FATS SHOULD BE ALLOWED IN ANY FOODS!
Thank you for sharing this info!
This is sad to hear. As I thought it was 100% GMO! I prefer kerrygold butter over any butter because it’s naturally yellow in color and it’s grassfed. It tastes great. I’ve did some research and found that about only 3% of their feed is GMO including grains…etc an the rest is green grass. To me, this amount is negligible, I don’t think it has a major effect, also, it’s cheap when compared to other grass fed/high quality butters.