Dairy Free Butter Controversy Continues

A new product from Country Crock labeled “dairy-free butter” has sparked concern within the dairy industry.  This labeling of a non-dairy product as butter is a violation of federal standards, according to Chris Galen, executive director of the American Butter Institute.

“Butter has rebounded, and things like margarines and plant spreads, plant-based spreads, are in decline," Galen said.  "So, if you're a manufacturer of those imitation butters, fake butters, what do you do? You decide to label yourself as something called dairy-free butter, which is a total oxymoron, because you can't have butter unless it comes from a dairy ingredient, like cream. But this is a concern because we see these products in the marketplace.”

The American Butter Institute has asked the USDA to intervene, saying Country Crock’s dairy-free butter not only violates federal standards, but it misuses the term butter.

"The good news here, hopefully, is that there's a lot of interest on the part of the Trump administration to have people eat more real foods, whole foods," Galen said.  "This Country Crock product is a combination of canola and palm oil, but it's not legal to call it that. At least not in our view, and hopefully that will be the view of the FDA. And we're hoping that in this whole era of Making America Healthy Again, and this commission report that came out, they will look at this complaint that we have more sympathetically.”

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