Monday, January 27, 2014

Butter is back: Margarine giant admits defeat in the battle of the spreads...

It spent decades in the nutritional wilderness, blamed for heart disease, high cholesterol, and making people fat. But butter is back – and if you don’t believe us, ask the consumer goods colossus Unilever.

Billion-pound brands such as Flora have been at the heart of the Anglo-Dutch giant since its inception nearly a century ago. But the appetite for margarine seems to be melting around the world, forcing Unilever to admit defeat in the war against butter.

Last autumn, the company added butter to one of its spreads for the first time. Last week, Unilever said the move was paying off: although margarine sales were still down during its fourth quarter, shoppers in Germany had “responded positively” to the new-taste, “butter-based” Rama.

And this from a company whose head of foods, Antoine Bernard de Saint-Affrique, said in 2010, “Some people say it’s bread and butter, but here we say ‘bread and margarine’.”

Where British chefs aren’t making their own butter, they are buying it direct from artisan butter makers such as Abernethy Butter, based in Co Down, Northern Ireland. Full story...

Related posts:
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  2. Butter is GOOD for you - and margarine is chemical gunk...
  3. Why you shouldn't be afraid of eating fat...
  4. Why butter is a health food...
  5. The great cholesterol myth...
  6. Why ghee is good for you ...

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