Pass the butter — er, margarine. Or is it the olive-oil spread?
In the so-called oil-and-fats category, it's getting tougher to tell which is which. Butter giant Land O'Lakes is adding olive oil to some of its sticks, marking what it says is a category first. Meanwhile, a canola-oil-blended butter spread continues to gain attention, and some versions also include, you guessed it, olive oil. At the same time, brands are adding dashes of sea salt, cinnamon and sugar to spice up what was once a pretty mundane dairy staple.
But one thing is for sure. In its race against margarine, butter is winning — and even outpacing olive oil of late — as consumers seek pure, simple, flavor-rich ingredients.
Marketers are making the changes to fend off private labels and appeal to millennials and other cooks seeking flavorful recipes, said Phil Lempert, a food-industry analyst who runs the website SupermarketGuru. "It's a category that was dormant for a long time and just started gaining innovation in past few years."
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