Big brands do battle over what counts as butter

I’m a butter kind of girl. It's expensive yes, but for me nothing beats the taste of real butter for cooking, baking or simply spreading on toast. 

So when I stumbled on a “butterable” product — a house brand from a leading supermarket — at a fair price, I grabbed it. It was only when I got home that I discovered the “butter” I'd bought was actually a “full-fat modified butter spread made with canola oil”.

The lure for me had been the word “butter” that appeared in bold on tub, the word "-able” that appeared alongside it was in a less prominent type. 

The ingredients are cream — there's no indication of how much — 23% vegetable fat (canola seed) and salt. So do I assume that cream makes up three quarters of the product? Hmmm.

Then I got wind of something interesting, a recent meltdown between one of SA’s largest dairy product producers, Clover, and Siqalo Foods, the makers of top-selling vegetable margarine, Stork.

Clover took Siqalo to court over its new product, Stork Butter Spread. In an urgent application, they said Siqalo was in contravention of the Agricultural Products Standards Act 119 of 1990 and should not be allowed to use the term “butter” on the packaging of this product. They argued that doing so was “misleading” and “deceiving” to consumers — not to mention a threat to their own product, real butter.

Siqalo’s response, among other things, was that consumers knew the difference between butter and modified butter. 

Acting judge JS Nyathi struck the matter from the roll due to a lack of urgency, but I feel sure Clover is not going to take this decision lying down.

For butter aficionados, take heed and don’t be fooled as I was by words like “butterable”, “modified butter spread” or “contains butter” on food labels.