Some people have missed the small print on the back stating the butter is packed in New Zealand and imported from the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, for the consumer, it is a possible alternative,\u201d Dean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I would say the comments that have been raised online, many people find the country of origin labelling a bit hard to find.\u201d<\/p>\n
Usually, the international brands are typically easier to distinguish on the shelves, he said.<\/p>\n
Some consumers have been surprised when they\u2019ve opened a block at home, because it doesn\u2019t resemble the sunny yellow colour they\u2019re used to seeing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is international butter that\u2019s sold in New Zealand, but I think that\u2019s in foil packaging, it\u2019s in a smaller block, a more premium type product,\u201d Dean said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhereas here we have a product that looks very, very similar in terms of our paper packaging.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dairyworks head of marketing and innovation Maja Szarmach said the USA product has \u201ccertainly created some healthy debate\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always intended as a test for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s actually going pretty well. We\u2019re really pleased with how it\u2019s been performing so far. It has been around for a month or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
The paler product, coming from grain-fed cows, is priced in the range of $6.49 to $6.99 for a 500g block.<\/p>\n
Value-focused local butter starts at around $7.29 for home brand products in the same-sized packet.<\/p>\n
Szarmach said the company took advantage of a period when American butter prices were low enough to offset freight costs for the 12,000 or so kilometre trip.<\/p>\n
The sunny yellow block (left) is a New Zealand-made product, while the American butter from grain-fed cows is paler. Photo: supplied<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think about NZ butter, it is a premium global product; most of the butter that is produced here is exported,\u201d Szarmach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo local prices are pretty much driven by global market rates, not just what it might cost to produce the butter here.<\/p>\n
\u201cThink of it as a bit of an opportunity, or a window where the US butter price was at a bit of a low, so we could source that butter and bring it into New Zealand at a competitive price.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dairyworks is owned by Synlait. It also imports some cheese from abroad, but it won\u2019t be rushing to bring more in at that at this stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re pretty proud to obviously have a lot of great Kiwi cheese right at our doorstep and within our portfolio,\u201d Szarmach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely potential for that, but at the moment we\u2019re just focusing on this butter and seeing how that goes as a trial.\u201d<\/p>\n
– RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some people have missed the small print on the back stating the butter is packed in New Zealand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8239,3471,298,11519,19061,136559,83727,111,43,139,69,37250,16739,544],"class_list":["post-410406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-american","tag-among","tag-butter","tag-causing","tag-confusion","tag-cutprice","tag-miles","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-penny","tag-shoppers","tag-some"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}