20 www.FarmProgress.com ● July 2015 The Farmer Livestock/Poultry

BALANCING SUPPLY, DEMAND: Stored butter goes through a “micro- fixing” process (left) that softens butter so it can be pumped around the plant.

shapes. The rolling action helps sepa- rate the liquid — buttermilk — from the solids. The solids enter a third section of the churn where the milkfat is blended fur- ther with augers and metal plates. Salt is added here, too. Throughout the churning process, cream is kept at a constant 52 CHOICE PRODUCT: Quarter sticks of butter are in high demand, starting in the degrees F. fall. AMPI starts building quarter stick A tanker of cream goes through the four inventory in August and September. Butter churns its churns in about 45 minutes. ■ AMPI makes and packages butter butes growing demand for several ways, depending on customer butter to the numerous preference. Production lines can make it food shows on television. way back on top whipped or nonwhipped, and package it “Ten years ago, there into 1-pound solids, quarter sticks, butter were one or two shows. pats (also called “continental chips”) and Now there are chan- BY PAULA MOHR butter cups. nels, such as the Food ■ Butter consumption is back up ■ AMPI butter can be found every- REECE Network. [The cooks] are after a 40-year lull. AIRY diehards never ever gave up where — Sysco Foods, the largest food entertainers, and they do it with butter. ■ Cooking shows have helped boost on butter, even in the dark days of distributor in the U.S.; Wal-Mart; Cracker We have a whole generation growing up, butter’s presence. nonfat this and hydrogenated that. Barrel. Sales are evenly split between retail watching and being exposed to cooking D ■ AMPI in New Ulm is one of the top

Since 2012, butter has regained U.S. Key Points and food service customers. and making everything with butter.” fi ve butter-makers in the U.S. market share and reached its highest per- ■ Cream supplies for butter drop off Another avenue for increasing butter capita consumption in 40 years: 5.5 pounds in summer because ice cream plants need sales is consumer demand for butter that per person annually. That’s up from a low Bill Swan, division plant it. Come fall, however, butter production contains higher milkfat. European-style of 4.2 pounds per person in 1997. manager. This is what we triples, due to seasonal baking demand. butter, which may or may not be made Butter still plays a prominent role in learned that day: ■ In the U.S., butter’s standard of iden- in Europe, contains a minimum of 87% the state’s dairy industry, even though the ■ The butter plant tity is a minimum of 80% milkfat. It consists milkfat. AMPI expects European butter number of creameries has dwindled over gets a tanker — 48,000 only of cream and a little salt. No coloring sales to increase in both food service and time, the same as dairy farm numbers. Yet, pounds of cream — every is added. If it appears lighter in color, that retail sales outlets. Minnesota continues to hold its own as a eight hours. The cream simply means air was mixed into it. Sheryl Meshke, AMPI co-president and dairy manufacturing state, rather than a SWAN goes through various ■ When you see a USDA AA label on chief executive offi cer, points out another marketer of fl uid milk. quality and taste checks. If it’s good, the carton, that means the butter is the reason why butter is rebounding in sales: Given the resurgence of butter, we re- workers pump it through a pasteurizer best quality available. Not all cartons list It’s a basic, true dairy product — pure cently took a tour of the Associated Milk and into a silo. Pasteurizing melts the fat, this, so buyer beware. cream, clean and wholesome. Producers Inc. butter plant in New Ulm. and sitting in the silo lets the fat globules ■ AMPI provides the hand-packed, At AMPI, butter makes AMPI is a regional dairy co-op with 2,500 go back together. 90-pound butter blocks that are artisti- of 15% of total sales. members across the Midwest producing ■ Cream fl ows into one of four stain- cally transformed into Princess Kay but- Cheese is its top seller. 5.8 billion pounds of milk. The co-op less-steel, multi-chambered churns, which terheads every year at the Minnesota State AMPI made nearly 10% makes nearly 10% of the nation’s butter, fi rst beat the cream into little shapes that Fair. of the nation’s American- ranking it among the top fi ve U.S. butter look like grains of rice. These rice-shaped Marshall Reece, AMPI’s vice president type cheese last year. manufacturers. pieces then drop into a separator that of sales and marketing, says he continues That includes cheddar, Leading the butter plant tour was rolls the little pieces into snowball-sized to see the resurgence of butter. He attri- MESHKE colby and Monterey Jack.

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