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Kerrygold is marketed as grass-fed and all-natural, but the tub butter has concerning ingredients, dangers and marketing ploys to consider before buying.
Kerrygold, without question, is probably one of the best store butters you can buy. I myself have been using it for years for cooking.
The milk is from grass-fed cows and even though the cream used to make Kerrygold Butter is pasteurized, it is the best choice available to most folks who do not have access to raw butter from a small farm or who simply don’t want to use their precious raw butter for cooking.
I also know that many of you out there use Kerrygold too. When I conducted a Butter Poll on this blog awhile back, by far the most used butter (out of 1,500 or so total votes) was Kerrygold which received way more votes than even Organic Valley butter.
So what’s the problem?
My husband brought home the “new” Kerrygold butter the other day. On the surface, it looked fine. Nowhere on the outside of the package was there any indication that there was a problem with this butter. Here’s what it looks like.
I got suspicious with the “new” label, however. There’s nothing “new” about butter. That’s what I like about it after all!
Another tip-off that there was a problem lurking was the proclamation on the label that this “New Kerrygold” was “naturally softer”.
When I first saw the “naturally softer” words, I thought that meant that the butter was whipped and hence more spreadable. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want air whipped into my butter. This is a surefire way to get less product and get charged the same price for the privilege if you know what I mean.
I made a mental note to tell my husband not to buy this butter again because it was whipped and not as good a value.
But then, it got way worse…
Is Kerrygold Butter Grass-fed?
I took off the lid to the new Kerrygold package and saw the following words:
I had become a victim of the Big Fast One!
Kerrygold is stealthily selling LOWFAT butter and guess what? You get to pay the same price for the cheaper quality!
NOWHERE on the outside of the label did it say that the butter was low-fat. The ingredients said simply: pasteurized cream and salt the same as the commercialized Amish butter at the supermarket.
I daresay that this marketing ploy will be fooling a lot of folks who desire to buy full-fat grass-fed butter.
It seems that some butter brands have adopted what companies making substitutes for butter have been doing for years.
I have become very tuned in to these labeling tricks and manufacturer games over the years. When it comes to packaging, I double-check the ingredients along with the manufacturing processes every few months. This is even for products that I’ve been buying for years.
But how many people really do this?
Ingredient Bait and Switch
You NEED to be doing this!
Manufacturers are changing ingredients and packaging all the time! The primary intent of these “improvements” is to increase product sales and profitability. Your health is, sadly, of little to no concern in the grand scheme of things.
Reducing the fat content in its butter will skyrocket profits for Kerrygold as they will make the same per unit for the butter and yet be able to sell the skimmed cream to other companies to make ice cream or whatnot thereby increasing revenue substantially.
If you buy Kerrygold, I’m not telling you to stop buying it. I’m only telling you to beware of this new packaging nonsense and be sure what you buy is what you intend: full-fat butter!
By the way, if you are wondering why I love full-fat butter, you might want to educate yourself on the low-fat scam by learning about the history of butter vs margarine in the United States.
As for me, I will be returning this product to the store for a full refund. It is falsely advertised after all. I had no way of knowing it was a low-fat product until I opened it.
Manufacturer Response
I received this email from Kerrygold following the widespread sharing of this article. I find it very hard to believe that my blog suddenly brought this packaging error to their attention.
Do they have NO ONE on the production line in charge of quality control? This was not a difficult problem to identify. Could we have a bit of spin going on here? Perhaps so.
Dear Sarah,
Your blog has brought to our attention a packaging error of which we were unaware. While Kerrygold does sell a Reduced Fat & Sodium Butter the pack you show on your blog is 100% full fat butter which has been packed with the incorrect inner seal. There is no deliberate intent on our part to mislead our valued consumers or to misrepresent our product although we regret the confusion this is clearly creating.
We are working to identify how much product has been released into the market with the incorrect packaging so that we can replace it as soon as possible. In the meantime we would appreciate your assistance in clarifying the misunderstanding to your readers. We would love to provide further clarity — our email is [email protected] — and we are happy to answer any specific questions you and your readers may have in relation to the product.
With thanks & regards,
The Kerrygold Team
Why I No Longer Buy Kerrygold
I wanted to let all of you know that I no longer buy even the traditional Kerrygold brick butter in foil packaging. Why? A good friend visited Ireland and traveled extensively to a number of grass-based dairy farms.
This credible source told me that while the cows that provide cream for the Kerrygold butter are definitely on pasture and hence “grass-fed”, they receive supplemental GMO animal feed as well especially during the winter months. The local community and citizenry in Ireland concur and will tell you as much if you are in the area.
So, the word on the street is that Kerrygold is not legitimately pastured either.
Butter from cows that get GMO feed introduces the very real possibility of Roundup residue in the butter.
Thanks but no thanks!
While I have not been able to confirm this story 100%, I trusted the credibility of the information enough to permanently switch to another brand (I currently use this one).
I use this butter for cooking in addition to the homemade pastured raw butter I make for non-cooking purposes.
I also no longer recommend Kerry Gold in my Shopping Guide.
What about Organic Valley butter as an alternative to Kerry Gold? While I am not happy about Organic Valley’s policy that disallows member farmers to sell raw milk on the side to their community (treating them more like medieval serfs than the independent business owners that they are), I find this less onerous than deceptively feeding animals GMO feed without clearly informing the end consumer.
I can’t get raw dairy where I live and it’s very hard to find 100% grass fed butter. The best I can get here is organic butter which is mostly grass fed but also supplemented with organic grains. However, I can go to the States (Bellingham, WA) to get Kerrygold butter. Will Kerrygold butter be better than the one I have now? I’ve heard that Kerrygold cannot guarantee that their grain feed in GMO free but I avoid all GMOs so is it still a good choice?
Right off the KerryGold website:
“The Irish Dairy Board and Kerrygold work closely with farmers to ensure the highest standards for our ingredients. GM is a relatively new issue in an Irish context. We are taking an active role in exploring the potential and challenges around using GM free grain in the Irish dairy industry. Supplementary feeds are important for the health of the animals. Some of these will contain soy and corn. At present, the Irish Dairy Board cannot guarantee that grain supplements used by farmers will all be GM free.
We can confirm that Kerrygold butter and cheese do not contain GM ingredients.”
Illogical contradiction, here, no? That’s because they are playing with words: GMO’s aren’t used in the MAKING of their cheeses and butters, they mean, as the primary things used in the processing – cream, salt, some “natural herbs and ingredients” (quite vague there too. Could be MSG like everyone else, as there is no regulation for the word “natural” in Ireland either.) BUT they are saying it could be in the feed of the cows, therefore, in the milk, BEFORE they transform said milk into butter or cheese. Especially since they supplement the cows after calfing, just before the summer grazing/butter-making season!
I think organic butter and cheese, even if made from pasteurized cream, is safer to choose to avoid the GMO’s….
Great food sleuthing, Sarah!
ps in advance no time to read all 279 posts first…
I feel the same way about labeling etc, but I feel you might have jumped to conclusion and left out some details at least for me.
What about simply looking at the weight of the package ?
Then look at the ingredients to look for fillers of some type or any other weird junk in there and then finally look at the grams fat per tablespoon or Xgrams fat per xgrams product and should be right about 14g.
With all that said I tend to not think conspiracy here and just some dodo loaded the wrong package seals in their machinery.
I have stopped using Kerrygold quite a while ago. Why use a product that has to be shipped in refrigeration containers across the ocean? By the time it arrives in the store it is everything but fresh. In fact I am quite dubious about how this shipping process is actually done, because one thing is for sure they do NOT use next day air to ship their product to the US. Using shipping containers takes weeks if not even month before the product hits the shelf… No thank you…..
I buy locally produced hand made Amish roll butter for less than 1/4 the price of Kerrygold, It is fresh, from Amish farmers that use NO chemicals or pharmaceuticals and the cows are fed on grass pasture WITHOUT any corn or other grain unlike Kerrygold. And the taste? Vastly superior to Kerrygold… Its fresh, real fresh and the difference is like night and day. Amish roll butter tastes just as I remember the butter tasted when we used to make it our self when I grew up in Europe.
John, what if you live 1000’s of miles away in the states from ANY Amish farmers? I grew up in Eastern PA and the novelty people have over the Amish is getting old. Buy there products, by all means. I do feel they are superior but leave them alone. They’ve always wanted to be left alone (unless they are running a puppy mill. A LOT of the Amish do that). You don’t say, the sweet, gentle Amish do that? Oh yes they do. One was not too far (30 miles S of where I lived, between my town and Philadelphia).
Where can you find Amish butter??? I live in SW Michigan.
Hi. I am very concerned with getting which has not been interfered with. I have decided to be satisfied with Kerrygold. Enen with the softener, i think its superior.
The Kerrygold traditional style brick butter is fine. I have it in my fridge right now. The soft tub style is questionable and I won’t use it.
So Sarah I just read the last comment here from sophiemiaou November 3, 2013 at 2:51 pm – can you update us on the GMO issues – is there one?
Kerrygold butter is fine in the brick form. Ingredients: Cream
There certainly are alternatives out there. Your best bet, go to your local dairy farm and purchase butter from their grass fed herd. There are several here in the Socialist Republic of California, sorry – couldn’t help myself, and you are better off by supporting the local economy as well.
My two cents…
I wonder if the extra softness and spreadability of the new range is the sign of it being homogenised.
I live in London, UK and get this butter regularly, lately I noticed they changed the label to this: Creamy, Pure Irish Butter, just naturally softer. I did notice also that the butter even when taken straight out of the fridge is very easely spreadable unlike before or any other butter. I wonder what makes it softer,though.
As well there was a discussion on facebook WAPF UK page about butter and someone mentioned that they emailed Kerrygold regarding GMO feed for their cows and Kerrygold emailed back saying that their cows are mainly grassfed and they do supplement when needed with feed and they cannot guarantee that that feed is GMO free. That got me worried a lot, and I am now considering switching to some other butter altough I really love Kerrygold. What are your thought about it?
I’ve seen info on other blogs stating that 97% of the product is from grass-fed cows. 3% is not, which is where the GMOs would come into play.
According to their website, it’s softer because they heat it gently, and then cool it down again.
That’s never worked to permanently soften real butter I’ve made in my kitchen before.
looks more Luke a simple grammar error to me. it say 25% less fat than other butters. grass fed butter will have less fat than corn fed butters.
If you were buying milk that would make sense but butter is made from the butterfat portion of milk. Fat is fat. Some breeds of cows have a high percentage of butterfat in their milk than others (Jersey vs Holstein).
Would the unsalted Kerrygold butter be good to use to make butter oil/ghee. The area in which I live has no local dairies that I’m currently aware of that will sell raw(real) milk or cream. Also in no packaging whatsoever does it say if the butter has been low temp pasteurized as you’ve required if you’re unable to locate raw unsalted butter.
My Trader Joes’s still carries the gold solid bars and I’m still going to purchase it. No sight of the “new” Kerry Gold Butter, although Whole Foods carries it. I don’t shop Whole Foods.