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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 Kerrygold@idbusa.com — 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.
Sara
Sarah, what an interesting read on butter! Having grown up on raw homemade butter my whole life—nothing beats raw homemade butter—but I also enjoy Kerrygold butter and buy Kerrygold butter. I would imagine “Low-Fat” butter to mean lower butterfat content of the cream, depending on the cow breed, Various butterfat contents from different breeds of cows will have taste differences as well. I am not sure about GMO being permitted in Ireland.
Melanie Allison
If Edward C. Stone knew anything about REAL butter, the butter is yellow from the beta-carotenes the cows get from eating REAL grass, and not grain in some feedlot. When the fat particles are broken up during the butter making process, the beta carotene color is exposed. Your rudeness towards the HHE was unwarranted and obviously, mis-informed, sir!
Edward C Stone
Sorry Charlie, real butter is not yellow and Land O Lakes is not without dyes or other “enhancements”. As for GMO grains as feed for farm animals, do more research, maybe milk a few head, maybe stand at a hand churn for an hour, see what REAL butter is.
Work a dairy for a month if your pretty keyboard hands can handle it.
Sarah
Nice bit of mansplaining there Edward!
Perhaps you should rethink your arrogant stance, though. Real butter is most definitely YELLOW my friend … I’ve made it before in my own kitchen! See the pictures here. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/video-how-to-make-raw-butter/
Of course, butter is only yellow naturally IF IT COMES FROM GRASSFED MILK.
Nick Vanderwal
Thank you for this article and your research that went into it. As of now my Kerrygold is dumped. Hope they are listening.
C
I’ve had the same experience recently. Probably still better for you than Kraft though. I won’t have it; threw the stuff away.
Colette
Really? Where did you learn that from? Cows that eat a primarily grass and flower diet have more beta-carotene, which gets passed through via the fat (that’s why milk from grass-fed cows is not that yellow–butter has a higher fat content than milk, even whole milk). The resultant product is a yellow butter. Poorly fed cows (mosty grain/corn) will have a non-yellow butter, that’s why manufacturers will add food coloring to their product to make it more yellow.
Susan Bartel
Hi Sarah, I enjoyed your article. I studied this too and found some reading that Kerrygold is not completely grass-fed as they have a partial winter climate and so they have some grains when they can’t graze. I saw on U.S. Wellness Meats website that Anchor butter from New Zealand is the only completely grass-fed butter due to the cows being able graze year round due to their climate. Anchor butter tastes great and is yellow. 🙂
Charles Reed
I bought some Kerrygold irish butter, It tastes like margarine to me. Real butter is not yellow! Will definitely get Land o Lakes butter next time.
Leslie Estes
Good to know about Kerry Gold. I used to love their hard cheese – but stopped buying it after my last package, about a year or so ago, lacked the distinction of their old quality aged Cheddar: it wasn’t crumbly and was bland tasting. Nothing special about it anymore.
I think what ruined Kerry Gold was its popularity. Once it gained widespread distribution its prices also dropped a little and now it’s just a cheaply produced product trying to pass itself off in the organic pasture raised market. GMO’s and non-organic are a real deal killer for most of us. I used to think Kerry was Gold was both.
Funny, the stick butter is on the sale this month at Natural Grocers (small chain in the west) and before stocking up I decided to run a quick search to see if it was still a safe product.
Thanks for the warning. I’ll share this post.
Van H.
I just purchased a new 8-oz block of Kerrygold butter and it is totally different texture than the Kerrygold I’m used to. I don’t know if they have changed anything, but the butter has never felt this soft before. I noticed the difference right away.
Is there other brands of grass-fed butter that are worth buying? I see mentions for Pure Amish butter and Organic Valley.
So perplexed!