'Tis The Season For Increased Butter Consumption

Kansas City, MO - For many Americans, preparing for the Christmas Season includes dusting off family favorite recipes that include rich, buttery desserts and entrees. This is good news for dairy farmers nationwide as annually, butter consumption sees a spike from Thanksgiving thru the New Year. According to Information Resources, Inc., of the 417 million pounds of butter sold in 2005, 148 million pounds of the butter was sold in the last 13 weeks of the year.

One butter that is particularly popular during the holidays, especially with chefs and gourmet cooks, is Keller's Creamery Plugra brand European-style butter. Plugra has a higher butterfat and lower moisture content than conventional butter – 82.5 percent butterfat compared to 80 percent in conventional butter.

Emily Aerisolphal, associate brand manager for Keller's Creamery, a division of Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. (DFA), explains that the higher fat content makes it richer and more concentrated, which means cakes rise higher, pie crusts and croissants are flakier, and cookies crisp more evenly. It also blends more smoothly for creamy sauces and other foods. The brand, which comes in salted form for table use and unsalted for cooking, is distributed nationwide at leading retailers, as well as Super Target and Whole Foods.

Just in time for the holidays, Keller's Creamery recently introduced Keller's Spreadable Butter with Canola Oil. The new product, sold in 8-ounce tubs at Philadelphia and Mid-Atlantic region grocery stores such as ACME, Giant, Genuardi's, Pathmark, Clemen's and Shop Rite, was developed in response to consumer demand for an easy to use spread for toast, muffins and other foods.

Nationwide, butter blend sales grew 29 percent between May 2005 and May 2006, according to the marketing information company AC Nielsen. "We expect Keller's Spreadable Butter with Canola Oil to capture its fair share of this growing trend," Aerisolphal says, "because Keller's is the butter brand of choice among Philadelphia and Mid-Atlantic consumers."

SOURCE: Keller's Creamery and Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. (DFA)