In Ukraine, more and more often you can find a fake, which is passed off as butter and is trying to sell at the price of this product. The distributors motivate this with a high percentage of fat, which supposedly guarantees that this is real oil, and not fake.

However, under the brand name of high-fat butter, elemental spreads can often be sold. Dairy industry experts explained what is the fundamental difference between butter and spread, and what role the fat percentage of the product plays in this.

What is the difference between butter and spread?

Definitely – not the percentage of fat: this is the first thing to remember. The product can have a very high fat content (and not only indicated on the package, but quite real), but still remain a spread. After all, a spread is a product in which a part of milk fats (sometimes even very large ones) is replaced by vegetable fats (more often palm oil).

Due to such a replacement, the product turns out to be much cheaper than the cost price. However, the most shameless manufacturers or distributors, knowing this, still try to sell it to buyers who are confused by the high fat content. Many people mistakenly believe that only a product with a high fat content, 82% or more, can be real butter. However, in reality this is not the case, experts say.

Even a not very fatty product may be natural butter, just as a product with 82% fat content may not be.

Therefore, consumers should remember that natural butter can contain whole cow's milk, cream, skim and powdered milk, cheese cream and butter can. In addition, it can contain: salt, annatto dyes and beta-carotene, retinol and drinking water. And that's all – there shouldn't be any vegetable impurities in it.

What percentage of fat can be in butter?

It may contain different percentages of fat, but all this fat must be exclusively milk-based.

Depending on the percentage of fat, butter can be as follows:

• "Sandwich" – from 61.5% to 72.4%;
• "Peasant" – from 72.5% to 79.9%;
• "Extra" – from 80% to 85% fat.

Depending on the percentage of fat, its cost also increases. This is what counterfeiters often use when trying to sell a spread with such a fat content as the most expensive butter. Therefore, buyers should carefully read the composition of the product on its packaging. He is usually not falsified – they are afraid.

AGROtrend