Date: 22nd July 2016
The demand for butter is spreading with eight out of ten people preferring the food they eat out-of-home to be made using the pure and natural ingredient. Operators that opt for butter could also feel the commercial benefits with a staggering 82% of people more likely to dine at the establishment if they used the butter in their dishes rather than margarine.
The independent research* commissioned by Lakeland Dairies explored consumer attitudes to one of the nation’s widest used dairy products and revealed that butter is indeed better, with the single biggest motivator for eating it being its superior taste (71%). Over half of consumers also choose butter over margarine because it’s a natural product and better quality.
Commenting on the results, Simon Muschamp, Head of Marketing at Pritchitts said:
“There’s a growing demand for butter with consumers turning their back on other spreads. Euromonitor has reported that, in the last five years, Butter sales have risen by 29%, while “Spreadable Oils and Fats” have fallen by 3.4% and Margarine is down 1% from 2010 or down 16% from 2013^.
Simon continues, “The two key drivers for this are the demand for ‘real food’ – especially out-of-home where consumers are looking for quality and value for money – and the trend towards natural foods. Great taste and quality aside, there is now a weight of research that supports the health benefits of eating butter and the good fats it contains, as well as the negative impact of consuming some spreads. With just a single ingredient – milk – butter meets these demands and delivers on taste.”
A small amount of salt is added to much of our butter as this is the preferred taste in the UK and Ireland.
Backing up the boom in butter, the research also found that 8/10 people would think more of the quality of an establishment’s food overall if they were given butter from an Irish dairy co-operative and a further 61% would pay more for a dish made with it.
Simon adds: “Consumers want to know what’s in the dishes they eat and where those ingredients come from – information they’re willing to pay for! Lakeland Dairies pure and rich creamy butter is made using high quality milk collected on a daily basis from our Irish dairy farms. We’re proud to be able to offer the best butter from the Emerald Isle to support operators front and back of house.”
Lakeland Dairies pure dairy butter is available in Salted and Unsalted 250g packs, in cartons of 20 and 40. For front of house service, butter is packed in mini portions and mini dishes. Each butter pack is wrapped in high quality gold foil that promotes its Irish heritage through a shamrock on pack to the consumer.
Lakeland Dairies is one of Ireland’s leading farmer-owned dairy co-operatives. Their cows graze on lush, green pastures and produce high quality milk, which is collected from over 2,200 family farms on a daily basis. Using unrivalled expertise and state of the art machinery, they process over 800 million litres of milk into their range of value added dairy products.
Click here to download the Better with Butter infographic
*Consumer Insight, Toluna March 2016.
^ Euromonitor International from official statistics, trade associations, trade press, company research, store checks, trade interviews, trade sources
