Sick of paying $11 for butter? Try this

Friday, 9 May 2025

If you cringe every time you have to buy a block of butter because of the astronomical prices - this hack could save you.

In about 10 minutes you can turn a 500 millilitre bottle of cream and a pinch of salt, which would set you back no more than $5, into a block of homemade, spreadable butter.

One mum shared to Facebook that she paid only $4.19 for a bottle of cream, instead of $10.49 for a block of butter at her local supermarket, which made her enough home-made butter to last her family a week.

Butter is essentially cream that has been whipped so much it forms into a solid matter.

So to make butter you need to whip the cream in a bowl as if you’re making whipped cream, then keep going and going and going until the butter forms. If you have the arm strength you can even just shake the bottle of cream until it goes solid.

The cream will then separate into a liquid and solid form, with the liquid being buttermilk. You can keep it with the solid butter or strain it for other recipes such as fried chicken.

But, if you were wanting to make a full 500 gram block of butter, you’d need at least one litre of cream, which cost between $8 and $9, so a block of butter might not be so bad after all.

The price of butter has become an issue in New Zealand, with the average price of a 500g block rising 185.7% in the past decade. According to Stats NZ butter prices increased 63.6% in the 12 months to March 2025.

Last week the price of a 500g block of Anchor was $11 at Woolworths, while a block of Rolling Meadow butter was $11.29 at a North Island and South Island New World.

Infometrics economist Gareth Kiernan said for consumers to see any relief at the supermarket international dairy prices might need to drop as much as 15%.

So, it looks like cream sales might surge and we could be whipping for some time.