Research Note
Designer Butter:
Diet Formulation to Make Like Irish
This year’s upheavals in global trade provide what one analyst calls “a rare opportunity”: U.S. butter makers may be able to capture market share from higher priced imported European products. But can they compete with a certain favorite premium butter from Ireland?
Tweaking fatty acid supplementation can help, but how?
Background: Last year the U.S. imported record amounts of Irish butter, reaching 17 million pounds in the month of November. Then, looking ahead to import tariffs on European Union products — currently forecast at 15% — leading Irish exporter Kerrygold reportedly diversified sales away from the U.S. By May this year Irish imports had fallen to 2 million pounds a month.
At this writing, U.S. market butter prices are less than $2.00 per pound, like back in 2021 at this time of year. Along with more milk, our modern, high-producing Holsteins on total mixed rations continue to produce more milk protein and more milk fat.
“Milk is the ultimate commodity,” says Penn State’s Dr. Kevin Harvatine. “Yet today by adjusting the diet, we can adjust milk components to achieve specific targets, in effect ‘segmenting’ the commodity into specialized products to meet the demands of specific markets.
“Without a doubt, U.S. producers can produce milk fat with a fatty acid profile to help processors make a butter that is more like Irish butter.”
In formulating butter-specialized diets, Harvatine points to how the balance of palmitic acid (PA) and stearic acid (SA) supplemented in the diet affects milk fat melting temperature.
Milk fatty acid profile changes in response to a number of factors. Key to this is the amount of fat made “de novo” in the mammary gland and the type and amount of fat fed.
Looking at effects on milk fat melting temperature, Penn State researchers increased supplementary PA, which increased PA in milk fat and increased solid fat content (SFC) of milk fat at room temperature (20°C, 68°F). By contrast, increasing SA “modestly” decreased SFC, which would produce softer, more spreadable butter.
“Palmitic acid dose-dependently increased SFC of milk fat at room temperature while SA had the opposite effect,” Harvatine says. At the highest dose (750 g/d), PA was 36.5% solid versus the control (31.6% solid) and SA (28.2% solid) at room temperature.
Nonetheless, when it comes to high-producing mid-lactation cows, researchers also find that supplement blends with higher PA and limited SA offer higher milk yield, 3.5% fat-corrected milk, energy-corrected milk, and milk fat. That’s milk fat for conventional American butter.
But five years ago, consumer complaints about Canadian and U.S. butter went viral. “Buttergate” helped propel the rapid growth of Irish butter imports throughout North America.
“Today,” Harvatine says, “we have opportunities to modify butter melting properties through dietary strategies in order to deliver competitive premium products.”
Learn more at the upcoming Dairy Cattle Nutrition Workshop.
Questions?
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