History of butter production

The evolution of the butter-making process has progressed from the use of skins and gourds for churning, through to the use of wooden-barreled butter churns, which have since been exchanged for stainless steel churns.

As late as 1860 farmers in the United States made butter and marketed it locally. It was not until the last half of the nineteenth century that buttermaking in the United States became a factory operation. Factory production of butter rose from 29 million pounds in 879 to 627 million in 1909 to over 1 billion in 1921. With this rise, dominant brands appeared.

The development of the continuous process in the 1950s led to the replacement of the batch process in most industrial plants. In the nineteenth century, butter was marketed mainly in tubs and portioned put by the grocer to individual buyers.

In 1898, the firsts packaged butter was marketed by Beatrice Creamery Company, the predecessor of Beatrice Foods. Aside from Beatrice company is the early leaders in packaged butter were meatpacking companies, such as Swift and Amour, who entered the business through their production of margarine.

There were few differences in the packaging of butter and margarine, so these companies attempted to control sales of both products. However, margarine production surpassed that of butter in 1958 and nearly doubled butter production in 1969.
History of butter production