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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.
I disagree they are not being deceitful. If you look you will see that the butter you purchased contains 80 grams fat per 100 grams, this is the same as their block butter. It is very easy to check and see if something is lowfat or not just by checking the nutrition label. It is NOT reduced fat. I think some fact checking is in order before everybody freaks out and quits buying it. While it may be confusing, it isn’t lowfat and I hope Kerrygold responds soon.
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
Maybe you should do a nationwide RECALL and reimbursh the people who bought the false butter.
I agree. Someone commented above that they used to work in the grocery industry and that this mistake warrants a recall. So far nothing from kerrygold.
Why recall a product with an incorrect INNER label? That doesn’t make any sense. If the product itself was incorrect, I could understand being upset…but still not actually throwing away good food. But even then, it’s comments like this, attitudes like this and blog posts like this that give us natural food advocates a bad name. Honestly, if you would return food that is perfectly safe and in fact superior to most food on the market, which is essentially throwing it away, because of an incorrect label, I would strongly encourage you to check your heart. Do you know how many men, women and children all over the world who are going hungry right now? Who are actually dying because they don’t have enough food? And here you are encouraging your readers to return their food because a label is incorrect? PLEASE reconsider what you are asking. We can use this as a teaching moment, we can be upset that a company made a mistake, but let us also practice forgiveness and remember that we are all human, we all make mistakes, and to vilify a company that does mostly good work is not furthering our cause as natural food advocates. In fact, it makes us look selfish. “How dare this label be incorrect! I demand I be reimbursed for a product that was perfectly good and healthy and I am going to throw this one away.” How would that look to you if you couldn’t provide your family enough food to survive? That people in America are just throwing food away because it’s got a bad label on it? 🙁
Disagree totally. Food labelled incorrectly MAY be okay but what if it involves allergies and intolerances? The stores can give it to food banks if they will accept it. Call me selfish. This is a learning experience for the product manufacturer.
I just compared my new spreadable Kerrygold to the Smjor I have in the fridge. They have the same calories and percentage of fat. I made sure that we bought the full fat butter and not the reduced one. I bought the new Kerrygold because they advertised the softness due to the summer grass. I got a good sale and stocked up yet I like the regular just as well. I don’t think Kerrygold misled on their product. One just has to be sure to get the right package. It is always up to the consumer to do their homework.
I noticed new labels on their butter sold in bricks, but nothing different about indgredients or fat content. So, the bricks of butter are the same. I will continue to buy from them. Maybe they are simply expanding their market to include those people that do not know better….it is not their business to educate people on the benefits of full fat butter, right?…just to sell it. The same as Bob’s Red Mill….I still buy some select products from them, even though they sell products that I would never buy.
Not to mention it’s kinda silly to pay to ship butter all the way from Ireland when you can probably find a high-quality local brand and support a local farmer in the process! My co-op doesn’t sell KerryGold, but they have several good locally-made options. Doesn’t hurt that I live in the heart of dairy country though. 😉
YES! I want my butter from Pennsylvania cows!
We just ran across something very similar… but even worse I think. One of the recommended products on the WAP Shopping guide is Franks Red Hot Sauce. Last week my wife brought home a jar of their new Thicker sauce. I thought something was up right away on how they made it thicker…. 2nd ingredient is High Fructose Corn Syrup.
Watch out for “-er” labeling – usually means yucky food. The normal Franks is fine 🙂
I think your package was mislabeled. I have spreadable package in my frig and just checked it–it is not “light” bit looks exactly the same as yours. I think the KerryGold Light Spreadable should have a small blue label in the upper right hand corner–saying it have 25% less fat
Did anyone contact the manufacturer to ask them what they mean by “lower fat content”?
Thanks for the heads up! Low fat butter seems like an oxymoron anyway.
I compared my pure butter sticks from Costco (Kirkland brand) to the Kerrygold and the amount of fat is the same in both: 11G. The calorie count is the same also. Maybe they whipped it, and you may be paying more for less, but the fat content per serving (1 tbsp) is the same. I see you’ve done this comparison as well. So what is wrong with the Kerrygold butter? You are read by a lot of people, so if this butter is okay, you may need to retract your statement.
The packaging (see photo above) says Reduced Fat. I didn’t write that, Kerry Gold did.
I agree. I found this post through Kitchen Stewardship and I am SO sad to see that you have not retracted this blog post. In a world of deception, you are just as guilty. You are accusing a company essentially of lying because you don’t like their answer. You are being irresponsible with your large readership. There are very few brands who still create healthy food, and to vilify one of them because of a mistake is sad. I hope you reconsider just rescinding this entire post, or at the VERY least, moving your update to the top for those who don’t read the entire article and will take away a complete untruth from just reading the title and skimming over the article.