Butter prices currently are near all-time highs, so it might seem an unlikely time for a butter-consuming craze to be lighting up social media.
But that’s exactly what is happening with the advent of butter boards, a tasty take on charcuterie boards that are popping up all over Pinterest, Tik Tok, and Facebook.
Butter boards use a base of softened butter dressed with a variety of accents like honey, herbs, grated lemon peel, bacon bits, nuts, edible flowers – the possibilities are endless. Served with bread and crackers, they are party fare that is meant to be shared, just like charcuterie boards.
And while consumers may be paying more for butter than ever before, butter boards still are likely to be more affordable to create than their charcuterie cousins. Twitter users are calling the fancy appetizer a “viral inflation hack,” noting that one can build a butter board for about half the cost of a charcuterie board, even with retail butter averaging about $4.70 per pound right now.
If consumers are cutting back on cheese in their charcuteries, the dairy industry is reaping rewards in the butter market. “We love it, of course,” Heather Anfang, senior vice president of Land O’Lakes’ dairy foods business, stated in the New York Times.
Anfang said it was difficult to assess how much the rapidly emerging trend was definitively impacting butter sales, but that Land O’Lakes had “well blown away” its September 2022 butter sales forecast.
