{"id":278351,"date":"2025-11-11T20:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/278351\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T20:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:21:13","slug":"farmers-angry-as-woolworths-imports-us-butter-in-green-and-gold-packaging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/278351\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers angry as Woolworths imports US butter in green and gold packaging"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian dairy farmers are concerned consumers are being misled by cheap American butter being sold in Woolworths supermarkets.<\/p>\n

The imported US butter is sold under the Hillview brand in the major supermarket and packaged in green and gold.<\/p>\n

Exclusive to Woolworths in Australia, the butter has raised the ire of farmers and consumers, who have criticised it for its white colouring and bland flavour.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Hillview butter comes in green and gold packaging. (ABC Rural: Justine Longmore)<\/p>\n

“It hardly even looks like butter,” Australian Dairy Farmers president Ben Bennett said.<\/p>\n

“It’s white and somewhat different, and we want to be genuine about the product that we have and where it comes from.<\/p>\n

“[Woolworths] promote themselves as the ‘fresh food people’, and getting food from the other side of the world when we produce it here stretches the rubber band a little bit.”‘Please explain, Woolies’<\/p>\n

The supermarket’s Hillview brand has angered farmers before.<\/p>\n

The product line uses the green and gold colours usually associated with the promotion of Australian-made or produced goods.<\/p>\n

It also sells imported cheese from New Zealand<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“If you want a cheese sandwich, the only thing that Australia’s contributing from one possible supermarket is the grain [from] the bread,” Mr Bennett said.<\/p>\n

“Please explain, Woolies.”<\/p>\n

\"man<\/p>\n

Ben Bennett is concerned consumers are being misled. (Supplied: Peter Somerville)<\/p>\n

The Hillview butter is not the only imported butter sold in Australian supermarkets.<\/p>\n

But Mr Bennett said having Danish and Irish butter on the shelves was not as egregious as the American-made one because the origin was clearer in the packaging.<\/p>\n

“It’s absolutely cheapening us,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I want the consumer to be well informed because at the moment it is costing Australian farms and Australian workers their jobs.”<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

The US butter (bottom right) is paler than Australian butter. (ABC Rural: Justine Longmore)<\/p>\n

‘Green rolling hills’ common in dairy marketing<\/p>\n

A Woolworths spokesperson said the company was a “strong and proud supporter of our Australian dairy industry” and all its dairy products had country of origin labelling.<\/p>\n

The supermarket confirmed it was using US butter in the Hillview brand, but the spokesperson said, “We’re now again incorporating Australian-made butter into our value brands.”<\/p>\n

“All our fresh milk comes from Australian farmers, and the vast majority of our other dairy products, including butter and cheese, are sourced here too,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

“It’s not uncommon for imagery related to green rolling pastures to be used in the marketing of dairy products.”\"Butter<\/p>\n

Hillview butter is cheaper than other brands on the shelf in Woolworths. (ABC Rural: Justine Longmore)<\/p>\n

Australian dairy production down, imports up<\/p>\n

Rabobank dairy analyst Michael Harvey said the Hillview butter spoke to a broader trend in Australian dairy production and imports.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got an industry that’s contracted significantly over a long period of time, which just simply means there’s less milk production in the industry,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Less milk supply means more imports because we have got a domestic market that is still growing, so you do need more milk, and then it’s about where you source that product from.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Michael Harvey says imports are needed to fill the gap in local dairy production. (Supplied: Rabobank)<\/p>\n

Mr Harvey said dairy imports were increasing steadily, mainly in manufactured products.<\/p>\n

“We import quite a lot of cheese, we import \u2026 whey and milk powders and things like that, and more recently, increasingly more and more volume of butter,” he said.<\/p>\n

While Mr Harvey acknowledged the green and gold packaging was not good optics, he understood why supermarkets and consumers were looking for cheaper products.<\/p>\n

“I’ll leave it to the industry to debate around packaging, but from a pricing perspective, this comes down to the reality around the consumer market,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The cost of dairy products are a lot higher than they were a couple of years ago across the board, which is tough for consumers.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian dairy farmers are concerned consumers are being misled by cheap American butter being sold in Woolworths supermarkets.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,161360,161363,99,64692,17471,161359,161362,29488,161361,102],"class_list":["post-278351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-dairy-farmers","tag-australian-dairy-industry","tag-business","tag-butter","tag-dairy","tag-hillview","tag-imported-butter","tag-milk","tag-us-butter-sold-at-woolworths","tag-woolworths"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}