Trader Joe's Unsalted Butter Manufacturer?

This is sort of a shot in the dark, but I figured that SOMEONE might know the answer to this.

Trader Joe's changed their unsalted butter in the past few weeks. It is now identical to the house brand butter Whole Foods carries. While perfectly inoffensive, the current butter does NOT have the beautiful butter-y aroma and slightly cultured tang of Trader Joe's previous, FAR superior butter.

Trader Joe's is notoriously secretive about who makes their house branded items (they make the vendors sign a non-disclosure agreement). Does anyone know or have a good guess as to what manufacturer this was? I'd be happy to pay the undoubtedly higher price of the manufacturer's name brand. I just want my butter back in my kitchen where it belongs!

All USDA graded butter is marked with a code for the plant where it was manufacured. Here is a previous thread entitled 'Is butter fungible?'.
Here is a link to the USDA list of plants that participate in the USDA dairy grading program.
http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile ... PRD3641022

Bummer. I threw out the previous box when I started using the recent, inferior butter. If only I'd known then what I know now. Thank you for the information, though.

Is this why the shape of the box changed? I ended up buying the organic butter on my last TJ run because that box fits better in my fridge. Don't really feel a pressing need for organic butter so I was irritated by this.

Try Dean's brand

I didn't notice that the organic butter was still in the old box. I'll give that a shot. Maybe the old manufacturer is still making that one.

I thought perhaps the mystery vendor is Organic Valley and purchased a pound of their cultured unsalted butter today. Nope, that's definitely not it. Perhaps they are too small to be bothering with a non-organic version of their products.

Dean's Food makes butter? I do know that they own Horizon Organic and Land O' Lakes brand (my pre-TJ's brand). I've never seen Dean's branded butter, where do you get it?

MKL wrote:Try Dean's brand

It was a critical butter emergency. Not involving Marlon Brando, just regular baking/cooking.

grits wrote:Is this why the shape of the box changed? I ended up buying the organic butter on my last TJ run because that box fits better in my fridge. Don't really feel a pressing need for organic butter so I was irritated by this.

There are only two shapes for butter commonly used in the USA. East of the Rockies, you'll generally see Elgin packaging, in which the sticks are slightly longer and skinnier than the Western packaging used on the west coast, in which the sticks of butter are more squat. Regardless of shape, a stick of butter is 1/4 lb. The packaging for a pound of Western pack butter is more cubical than a pound of Elgin pack butter.

Who knew that! Thank you for the info.

grits wrote:

MKL wrote:Try Dean's brand

It was a critical butter emergency. Not involving Marlon Brando, just regular baking/cooking.

At our house, a critical butter emergency is anytime the par of triple wrapped 1# Plugra solids in the freezer dips below 10.

(Which Whole Foods still sells for $3.99!)

khm:

I have a package from the old TJ butter, rescued from the recycle.

The numbers on two of the end-flaps are PO3U3287.

Does that sound like the mfg's code?

Another flap has 0369-00-0043-00 It's different from the barcode. Does that help?

Printed on the face of the carton is 11P7 10 230744
BH#1 187 U4:46

Somehow, In don't think they want the consumer to understand.

That's all the nuimbers I can find. Hope it helps

If it does, please let us know the secret.

Mike

stevez wrote:

grits wrote:Is this why the shape of the box changed? I ended up buying the organic butter on my last TJ run because that box fits better in my fridge. Don't really feel a pressing need for organic butter so I was irritated by this.

There are only two shapes for butter commonly used in the USA. East of the Rockies, you'll generally see Elgin packaging, in which the sticks are slightly longer and skinnier than the Western packaging used on the west coast, in which the sticks of butter are more squat. Regardless of shape, a stick of butter is 1/4 lb. The packaging for a pound of Western pack butter is more cubical than a pound of Elgin pack butter.

The new TJ's packaging looks like 4 sticks but flat packed. into a rectangle. Is this the western packaging?

grits wrote:The new TJ's packaging looks like 4 sticks but flat packed. into a rectangle. Is this the western packaging?

If it looks different than the packaged butter you find nearly everywhere else and the individual sticks are fatter and shorter, then yes, probably. I don't shop at TJ's to know for sure, but I doubt TJs has reinvented the wheel and come up with a third method of butter manufacturing just for themselves.

stevez wrote:There are only two shapes for butter commonly used in the USA. East of the Rockies, you'll generally see Elgin packaging, in which the sticks are slightly longer and skinnier than the Western packaging used on the west coast, in which the sticks of butter are more squat. Regardless of shape, a stick of butter is 1/4 lb. The packaging for a pound of Western pack butter is more cubical than a pound of Elgin pack butter.

mbh wrote:Who knew that! Thank you for the info.

Apparently, stevez! Thanks from me, too. I didn't know about the geographical divide or the packaging terms. I prefer blocks of butter, but if I have to choose sticks, my aesthetic preference is for the squatter, western butter. Now I have to use this new information for food trivia something...

happy_stomach wrote:

stevez wrote:There are only two shapes for butter commonly used in the USA. East of the Rockies, you'll generally see Elgin packaging, in which the sticks are slightly longer and skinnier than the Western packaging used on the west coast, in which the sticks of butter are more squat. Regardless of shape, a stick of butter is 1/4 lb. The packaging for a pound of Western pack butter is more cubical than a pound of Elgin pack butter.

mbh wrote:Who knew that! Thank you for the info.

Apparently, stevez! Thanks from me, too. I didn't know about the geographical divide or the packaging terms. I prefer blocks of butter, but if I have to choose sticks, my aesthetic preference is for the squatter, western butter. Now I have to use this new information for food trivia something...

It's amazing the bits of arcane lacto-related info you pick up when you have a dairy company as a client.

MikeLM wrote:khm:

I have a package from the old TJ butter, rescued from the recycle.

The numbers on two of the end-flaps are PO3U3287.

Does that sound like the mfg's code?

Another flap has 0369-00-0043-00 It's different from the barcode. Does that help?

Printed on the face of the carton is 11P7 10 230744
BH#1 187 U4:46

Somehow, In don't think they want the consumer to understand.

That's all the nuimbers I can find. Hope it helps

If it does, please let us know the secret.

Mike

Thank you so much for the recycle rescue! Together with the USDA pdf, I think I have cracked the Butter Code. The butter was produced by Humboldt Creamery which was purchased last year by Foster Farms Dairy. I'm assuming that after the TJ's contract ran out, the new dairy owner declined to renew for whatever reason.

I notice that Humboldt Creamery had also produced the quite yummy Costco premium ice cream in the past.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Creamery

http://www.fosterdairyfarms.com/

I did go back to TJ's and purchased #1 of the organic butter, which does appear to be more like the butter I grew to know and love, with an enticing butter scent and marigold hue. It's salted, though, which I'm no longer used to eating. I'll have to use it to fry eggs, that's the only way I'll really be able to tell if it's the real deal.

Thanks again, Mike!

Mike,

How about an explanation of the code?

Thanks,

Hi,

I wasn't aware that TJ's changed their butter, it was a decent butter at a nice price. But there are so many good choices for butter I can't think of many reasons to stick to just one brand. The nuances from one brand to another are as enjoyable as beer tastings, wine tastings, cheese tastings...on and on.

parmagiano reggiano butter, lurpak butter, double devon cream butter, Kerry Gold, Chimay, sheep's milk butter, di bufala butter....MMMmmmmmmmmmm.

I'll often buy a couple of "better butters" at the same time so I can do a side by side taste comparison. Not to determin which is better, but to further discriminate the small differences between them.

dan

So where was the inferior butter from?

khm99 wrote:I did go back to TJ's and purchased #1 of the organic butter, which does appear to be more like the butter I grew to know and love...it's salted, though....

The one that labelled "Sweet Cream Butter" is salted. The one labelled "Unsalted" is not. Little bit of cognitive dissonance with the sweet cream/salted thing.

I'm a little confused. The good butter (which was discontinued) was made by Humboldt Creamery, which is in California. So was it "flat-packed" into a rectangle (ie, Western-style)? If not, and the HC butter was packaged Eastern-style (ie., it looks like the same long quarters we have here), then I'm afraid we might have the wrong butter manufacturer.

And, yes, I second teatpuller's question as to who manufactured the inferior butter.

aschie30 wrote:I'm a little confused. The good butter (which was discontinued) was made by Humboldt Creamery, which is in California. So was it "flat-packed" into a rectangle (ie, Western-style)?

The flat pack for the non-organic butter is a recent change.

grits wrote:

aschie30 wrote:I'm a little confused. The good butter (which was discontinued) was made by Humboldt Creamery, which is in California. So was it "flat-packed" into a rectangle (ie, Western-style)?

The flat pack for the non-organic butter is a recent change.

Right, so prior to the change, the butter you liked was in Eastern-style packaging, then?

aschie30 wrote:And, yes, I second teatpuller's question as to who manufactured the inferior butter.

When we do find out, I suggest not painting all their products as inferior.

Wholesale customers select what they offer their retail customers. If this processor's butter was sold through another retail outlet who made a different grade selection (I don't know the criteria, so grade may be a poor choice of words), you may like it far more than the product selected and offered by TJ.

Regards,

Sorry about the Dean's reference earlier.

I meant to say to try "Cabot" brand. And from what I understand, the only thing that has changed is the packaging, not the source itself.

what I want to know is why butter (in general) is so dang expensive!

razbry wrote:what I want to know is why butter (in general) is so dang expensive!

It takes about 2.5 gallons of milk to make one pound of butter. When you compare the cost of a pound of butter to the cost of a gallon of milk, it seems to be a bargain.

razbry wrote:what I want to know is why butter (in general) is so dang expensive!

Are you starting your own political movement?

I have found that the inner wrappers of most butter very clearly state plant# xx-xxx. Of course that doesn't help much if one is in a a store looking at the outside of the box, which has a more cryptic code. I know it indicates at least the plant the butter was packeged at, if not the number of the dairy. I would like to find out more about decrypting the code on the outside of the box. I was in Dominick's yesterday, comparing the codes on every box of butter in the place. I think the employees thought I was nuts.

gleam wrote:

razbry wrote:what I want to know is why butter (in general) is so dang expensive!

It takes about 2.5 gallons of milk to make one pound of butter. When you compare the cost of a pound of butter to the cost of a gallon of milk, it seems to be a bargain.

I have to take exception to that logic: To make a pound of butter, you end up with 2.5 gallons of skim milk, which still has value.
The reason why butter is high-priced is that butter is goooood, and there is a high demand for cream and butterfat. With Atkins still popular for dieting, delicious delicious fats are in higher demand. Ice cream, cheese, coffee drinks, baked goods, etc. all need butterfat. Demand is a big part of it, transportation costs are probably the next biggest contributor to the price.