The Great Butter Crisis

I've been hearing for a week or so that the shelves in the supermarkets that normally hold dozens of different brands of butter are empty. We ran out of butter on Tuesday so I called in to Intermarché to see if the stories were true. They were. There was not a single block of butter on the shelves. I bought some vegetable oil spread. The young woman on the checkout had no idea when they would get their next delivery of butter.

"Dear clients, as a result of a production problem, we are not able to offer you our full range of butter.
We apologize for the inconvenience. The Management."

Le Figaro Madame had a handy guide to things you can cook without butter the same day. For baking they suggest using various fruits and vegetables as substitutes (avocado, zucchini, beetroot, apple purée) or you could use any number of vegetable oils, or nut butters, or cottage cheese (see below for why cheese is available but butter isn't...). For savoury dishes you are directed to oils, margarine and duck fat. For your morning tartine you should think about oil based spreads, fruit butters or maple syrup.

The Figaro article, and others, explained that the crisis of supply has come about due to a combination of factors. First, after the milk quota system was scrapped France was flooded with both domestically produced and imported milk. As a consequence the price per litre, which was already below break even for many farmers, plummeted. Dairy farmers reined in their production, and I've heard that about half of dairy farmers have given up (usually converting to cereal farming or selling their land to their neighbours, who cereal farm). So now we have a shortage of milk, and it is manifesting itself primarily as a shortage of butter. 

The price of butter has been steadily increasing since the abolishment of the quota, and it is now twice as expensive as it was twelve months ago. Also to blame for the gaps in the shelves is the rigidity of the big supermarkets purchasing and supply chains. 

Supposedly the crisis has been excacerbated by a spike in demand for French bakery products overseas, especially in Asia and the Middle East.  Also, recent studies which have found that butter is not the risk to one's health that many Western consumers had long believed, have seen people gleefully returning to butter (for the record, we've always used butter).

Bakers are talking about increasing the price of croissants by about 5¢. Goodness only knows how expensive galettes des rois will be come January! One baked goods small factory manager from central France talked about only being able to source a tonne of butter a week, when her business needs three tonnes. She has cut workers hours by 70%. The shortage is being described as the worst since World War II.

For those dairy farmers still in business, many are worried that they won't see a share of the price increases, but there are opportunities if you can establish a positive relationship with your local milk processor. One of the tactics being tried by dairy farmers is to launch their own 'local milk' brand, emphasising the nutritional qualities due to the care taken with the cows own diet. The milk is sold at a higher price, but consumers understand that the food miles are short and the farmers have negotiated a fair price for themselves from the milk factory. Near us the milk comes from a radius of no more than 25 km from the Laiterie de Verneuil, and is sold in the same geographical region. The dairy farmer is paid 40¢ per litre -- nearly 10¢ a litre more than the average price paid to producers.

However, modern cows produce milk that is lower in fat than in the old days, so there just isn't enough to go round. French producers have historically focused on cheese because it gives a better return when milk prices are low, as they have been for the last decade or so. On top of this we are in the season when milk production is lowest. You need 22 litres of milk to produce a kilo of butter.

No one knows when the situation will return to normal. Of course people have been panic buying and hoarding. The French are the biggest consumers of butter in the world, eating 8 kg per person per year. Margarine just doesn't cut it for French pastries. So this butter crisis is deeper than just lack of supply, but impacts on a campaign by artisan bakers to combat industrially produced croissants and brioches made by workers who simply empty a packet of pre-mixed ingredients into the mixer and add water without knowing anything about how these pastries are made.

I discovered on Wednesday that there is butter to be had, if you know where to go. I bought a block of Verneuil demi-sel for €2.60 from the cheese truck at Loches market. The woman who runs it says she has no problem with supply from Verneuil and another small scale artisan producer. When I called in to my favourite bakery in Loches to buy a baguette they were displaying kouign amann on the counter. No butter crisis here then, clearly. I quizzed the owner, who also said that she had no problem, her butter came from Verneuil. It seems that the Laiterie de Verneuil is making sure their small local artisan customers are kept supplied. There is very much a culture of rewarding loyal custom and encouraging short supply chains in rural France. It's good to hear that the third biggest butter producer in France respects this civilised way of doing business.

It turns out that this is a global problem. Check out this article about the Australian situation in the Conversation. The info graphics are good, and I see that Australian's consume half as much butter as the French per head.