I think the color of butter depends a lot on what the cows are eating and what breed the cow is. Your more mass market, non-organic producers generate whiter milk and whiter butter. It is probably thought that yellower butter is higher quality, so producers have an incentive to color it that way.
Here’s a quick little cite from a dairy.
Cheesesteak that tallies, I made the butter for Christmas dinner.
Frank Purdue used to make a big deal about his chickens having a golden yellow color. Turns out they were fed marigold extracts. The marigolds were extracted with hexane, not normally something you’d want to put in your mouth.
Anyone who has ever been present for the slaughtering of a pig, or has cut up a deer or bear knows that while the meat is pinkish when it’s really fresh, the color doesn’t last long.
I’ve always wondered if the reason meat you get yourself turns so dull looking was because of refrigeration or if that is just the natural process, though. I’ve never left a hunk of meat out unrefrigerated just to find out :).
(Some) butter has been colored for a long time. Read the Little House On The Prairie books, and you can learn how Ma used carrot peelings to make the butter an inviting yellow rather than white.
Which are, of course, chemical dyes. They may play better to the crowds, however.
I agree that they sound better, although it is harly a selling point to admit meat has been dyed, whatever the dye was.
However, AFAIK, they use plain beetroot juice, so you could argue that’s natural, if you wanted to argue that.