# The price of butter **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 18, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995 "2004-06-18T05:08:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/1 "2004-06-18T05:08:07Z")
The price of milk, butter and dairy products in general is bruisingly high right now in the US. I’m sure there’s a reason for this, but I don’t know it. Can anyone enlighten me? ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/2 "2004-06-18T05:11:42Z")
The demand for meat has shot up because of the Atkins Diet and other high protein diets. It’s more profitable for dairy farmers to sell their cattle to slaughterhouses than to produce milk. That’s one reason I’ve heard. ---
**Author:** ![dqa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dqa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dqa)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/3 "2004-06-18T05:47:25Z")
A google search for “milk perfect storm” will give you the lowdown. As I recall from looking this up a couple weeks ago: 1. Due to low milk prices last year, many dairy farmers converted their milk-producing assets to meat. 2. Suddenly supply dropped below demand, and prices rose. 3. A shortage of synthetic BST, the hormone that increases milk production, exacerbated the problem. 4. The vast pool of Canadian livestock, which usually dampens such fluctuations, could not be imported because of a case of mad cow disease that apparently originated there. ---
**Author:** ![wigglyworm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/67e7ee/32.png) [@wigglyworm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wigglyworm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/4 "2004-06-18T05:56:34Z")
Another notable aspect to mention is the price of oil. Farmers use it too and potentially, being of lower income, are hit by it harder. Using modern day farm equipment everything from tilling the fields to transporting goods to market is hit, increasing farmers bottom line. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/5 "2004-06-18T06:02:13Z")
Okay, so should I continue telling myself what I have been: that this is no more of a barrel of laughs for the farmers than it is for me? And the prices will go down again once this crisis is over? Because if it really is about the Atkins diet, I’m gonna be p\*ssed. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/6 "2004-06-18T23:03:31Z")
Here’s another factor. Last year’s drought in big parts of the US made for a shortage (and high prices) in hay and grain. Many dairy farmers found themselves selling milk at a loss, and they thinned their herds or sold out completely. Now there are fewer dairy cows making less milk. Because of all the previous factors, the farmers are still not the folks making money. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/7 "2004-06-18T23:42:05Z")
If it’s Atkins, Can’t they just grow more cows?🙂 ---
**Author:** ![JavaMaven1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/cab0a1/32.png) [@JavaMaven1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JavaMaven1)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/8 "2004-06-18T23:48:06Z")
No direct answers to your question, but do you have a Trader Joe’s within a reasonable distance? Their dairy prices are consistently lower (easily 20-40%) than the major supermarkets in our area. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/9 "2004-06-18T23:59:11Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > If it’s Atkins, Can’t they just grow more cows?🙂 Well, sure you can grow more cows. But it’s not like you can just add a third shift to production or anything. There is a given total number of breeding cows at any given time. That number can be expanded by keeping more heifers to breed than one culls old cows at the end of their prime breeding years. However, keeping more heifers as breeding stock, while it increases the amount of beef that will be produced next year, decreases the amount of beef produced this year. (This penalty doesn’t exist in dairy, but it’s still the case that ramping up dairy production takes a year.) Note also that the more breeding stock you keep, the lower quality that stock is. Now, instead of keeping extra heifers, you could also import them. But the only large, geographically convenient market to import them from is Canada, and you guys are still not buying our cows. And, of course, you aren’t only not buying our breeding stock, but you’re not buying our slaughter stock either, which further exacebates the general shortage of beef. If you would reopen the border, the price situation would settle back to approximately where it was within a year or two, I’d guess, though naturally sustained drought is going to keep upward pressure on prices in the long term (and downward in the short term, if guys are selling breeding stock for slaughter because it’s too expensive to feed them). ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/10 "2004-06-19T00:15:55Z")
A few weeks ago our local supermarket had signs in the dairy section stating that the price of milk was being raised dramatically due to mandates from the State of California. [Details here.](http://www.ptreyeslight.com/stories/may20_04/milk_prices.html) ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2004, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-price-of-butter/250995/11 "2004-06-19T03:10:41Z")
> [@JavaMaven1](#): > > No direct answers to your question, but do you have a Trader Joe’s within a reasonable distance? Their dairy prices are consistently lower (easily 20-40%) than the major supermarkets in our area. Not any more, they’re not! Or at least, they’re charging 20-40% more for dairy than they used to. That’s when I realized that this was a serious problem. I used to always get butter, milk and cream from TJ’s, but then one day, just like that, their prices were what I used to pay at the regular markets. I’m still getting my dairy from TJ’s, because the regular market prices are now even higher than what TJ’s is currently charging. IOW: Ralph’s/Vons/Albertsons used to charge $3 a pound **on sale** ; TJ’s charged $2. Now it’s $3 at TJ’s and $5 elsewhere with no sales. Yeah, I know: boo hoo. But it was so sudden, I just wondered what was causing it.