I had a question on butter too but not about the price. I usually buy it from Costco. I ran out and bought some store brand from my local grocery store.

I've noticed that the Costco brand is harder and the grocery store brand is softer. What makes the difference?

temperature???
Just kidding...butter with a larger water content will be softer....that with a higher percentage of butter fat will be harder...unless frozen!
Linda c

I didn't notice butter down.. I too buy at Costco...I think it was pretty close to the same price it was last month I bought it.

But their sugar was up from 4.99 to 5.49 for 10 lbs.

So the Costco brand is probably better? Since it has more butter fat? I dont notice a taste difference.

I wouldn't be surprised if the price is down. Most likely it is because the dairy farmer is getting paid record low prices for milk. The September 2009 price is lower than it was 20 years ago. Your gain (low butter price) is putting many hard-working family farms out of business. :(

CS,
Thanks for the reason behind the drop. Have farmer costs declined also? I would gladly pay the higher price, knowing it would help family farms.
Jo

I buy Costco butter also but sometime supermarket butter too...it would be nice for the price to drop. Considering last year I had to forgo alot of cookie baking because of price...That is my hobby throughout the holidays and do tons of baking so hopefully it will stay this way!

No, Jo, farmer costs have not declined, but the recession is making people cut back on "luxuries" like butter. So, the farmer loses some more...

Milk is sold by the hundredweight if you are a farmer, not by the gallon. A hundredweight is somewhere around 12 gallons and the farmer is getting what the federal government says he gets for his milk. When that milk is pumped into the truck, the farmer has no idea what he's going to get for it. Right now it's about $12 a hundredweight, or about $1 a gallon that the farmer is getting. Since it's costing about $17 a hundredweight to produce, the farmer is losing about 40 cents per gallon on whole milk.

Annie

Annie1992 is 100% correct on her information about the milk prices. Milk pricing (by the government) is such a complicated matter with complicated formulas, that even those in the dairy industry (including bankers that work in the agricultural field) find it difficult to decipher. However, it's easy to decipher the bottom line, especially when it's in the "red".

jojoco - I believe there are many others, like you, that would be willing to pay more for dairy products if it benefited the dairy farmers. Unfortunately, the "middle man" is the one that benefits most of the time. I guess it's just one of those things in life.

Country Smile, you sound like another farmer. In my experience, the farmer very seldom benefits as prices for fuel and supplies go up, property taxes go up, government fees and regulations go up, but the price we get for our product very seldom goes up.

That's why I'm always telling everyone to find a small farmer near by, get beef, pork, eggs, fruits and veggies, help us keep the ground that our families have had for generations!

Annie

The milk farmers in Europe are rioting also because of too low prices. Why is that in this instance government sets the price? I never new it :-/

Annie,

I would love to use more local resources for dairy, produce and meat. Can you tell me how I can go about locating local farmers and what they sell? I am in the far west suburbs of Chicago, and I see farms here and there, but they aren't listed in the yellow pages online, nor can I find them on localharvest.org to know what they are selling.

I would love any advice you have on this!

Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.localharvest.org/

Sorry to interrupt, but christine, does this help at all?

http://www.illinoisfarmdirect.org/market_search.html

Around me, lots of the vendors at the farmers markets are small farms. (Some farmers markets allow non-local produce, so you might want to double check). I have found my egg vendors on Craigslist, so you might try that. Not sure how close you are to Chicago, but here's one I found:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/wcl/grd/1398294768.html

I have heard of dairy cooperatives that you can join, although I don't know if there are any near you. Around here a couple of small dairies just opened up, they are finding more and more customers are willing to pay a little more for quality. And now that suburbia has moved into some of the best American farm land, some of these places are very convenient. It's a hard choice though, I have decided I'm going to cut down on butter due to the lower cost of margarine. I realize that in some baked goods it won't make much difference, or I can go half and half.

lpink, but margarine is not a natural food it's a chemical substance??

Christine, do any of these help?
I have no idea locations...I belong to a personal co-op we have Co-op Mistress(lol), and she organizes, finds and deals with local distributors and farms and gets us good deals. I bet there is something like that in your area. It's just a word of mouth kind of thing though..

A grocery opening soon
Yelp entries
Greenpeople.org~listed by State
The Local Beet

Kinda OT, but butter is now a luxury I cannot afford, just like it was for a lot of folks in the olden days. I will still use it on my bread as a spread, but I figure what's a few more chemicals in my baked goods compared to the other chemicals I ingest on a weekly basis. I do what I can, but organic and the like has become too much of a luxury item for me due to economic circumstances. I don't know if I can go totally back to the way it was in the olden days when they ate lard spread on bread routinely. Or schmaltz! I also am running around so much with all of my jobs I haven't been able to scope out the best deals all around town. I'm commuting so much for my jobs I try to keep trips down to areas I'm already traversing. It's really hard to do some of these cost cutting measures when working so many hours, because a lot of the savings comes from the time you invest in making it yourself. It's a real balancing act! I guess you can mix butter with lecthitin (sp?) and olive oil to make your own spread but I've never tried it. I could stock up on cheapie butter right now but my fridge is filled with free bread I got last week. I am not prepared for this frugal period! I need a big old beast freezer like grandma had out on the summer porch. In so many ways I find myself channeling grandma's old survival techniques! Maybe someday I'll even be able to eat schmaltz on a cracker, but that day has not come yet!

If that day ever comes, I've got an extra container of schmaltz you're more than welcome to.

LOL, Okay I can't even think about putting schmaltz on a cracker..not that with a sprinkle of salt it might be pretty good. LOL But I just can't do it..

But I do leave the fat on my chicken stock. ;)

Christine, I'd contact your local Extension Service or 4H in addition to the options already given. A lot of times it IS word of mouth, farmers sell to people they know. For instance, I didn't raise pigs this year, but I wanted to buy pork. So I asked a neighbor, who didn't have any extra but maybe his BIL did. Nope, his BIL didn't but HIS father in law did.

I get dairy products from a local dairy, hormone and antibiotic free. However, I'm taking a cheese making class on Saturday at a different dairy. When I signed up it was mentioned that I could also buy cheese at the "farm store". I could also buy a "share" of a cow for milk and they sell organic beef, lamb, eggs and I think, turkeys. They have kittens available for adoption "seasonally". (grin)

How did I find the class? I asked the big dairy if they had classes, they didn't, but they knew about the smaller place.

So it isn't always easy and sometimes it isn't even feasible, depending on your location, but it's always worth a try.

L, here butter is $1.88 a pound and the store brand margarine is $1.49, not much difference. If I were willing to drive 25 miles to The Evil Empire, I could get margarine for 49 cents, but it would cost about $7.50 in gas!

Annie

You ladies are resourceful!!! Lots of good information for me to sort thru! Thank you!

I have only been to a handful of farmer's markets around here. There is one that is very big, that I haven't had a chance to get to since it is on Thursdays. I guess it would make sense to ask the farmer's there! :)

I found one really nice farm, just always looking for others out there. Also would consider a CSA if I could share with another family - it would just be too much for us right now.

Christine, I have a big garden, grow much of my own stuff, but I just LOVE farmer's markets. Go to the big one.

Annie

Do I just live in the most expensive middle-of-almost-nowhere in the world or what? I'd be thrilled if I found butter under $2.99 a pound! Last time I looked (about three weeks ago), it was $4.99 for the brand name, $3.99 for the local dairy brand, and $3.49 for the store label.
And it's not because there are no cows around here because I can smell 'em every morning. (Although I think they are mostly headed for steak and burgers rather than dairy cows.)

Have any of you seen King Corn? Granted, it's not about milk, but it defiinitely goes inot how convoluted the whole ag cost/loss/pay structure is.

In our area, it was three pounds for $5 this week so I stocked up and froze it for baking next month for our church's craft fair. That's the lowest price I've seen so far this year.

For those of you looking for direct buying from the farm, or from farmers' markets--bless you! Word-of-mouth advertising is about all farmers can afford, so if you find a good source, tell others about it.
We sell eggs and produce from our vegetable garden, in a very small way. May I make a few suggestions to you, as customers? Please don't try to "bargain" with the seller--you aren't at a garage sale. Don't poke the produce, pick it up and then put it down somewhere else, or make derogatory comments. We do take pride in what we do and offer for sale, and try to make our little stand as attractive as possible. If you don't see it, we don't have it for sale--staring at the garden and asking for artichokes won't make artichokes magically appear in Central Texas! And lastly, you are on someone else's land, where they have their home. Keep your children and pets close at hand--it's safer for them and for the farmer.