Seventh Circuit Takes Up Wisconsin Fight Over Butter Grading

CHICAGO – The Seventh Circuit heard oral arguments Thursday in an artisanal butter maker’s challenge to a Wisconsin law that requires all butter sold in the state to be graded on taste.

Ohio-based Minerva Dairy makes artisanal, small-batch Amish butter and cheeses, but its butter does not qualify for Wisconsin’s highest butter grade – AA – based on state-set standards for taste, color, uniformity and body.

“This is not just paternalism, it’s the worst kind of paternalism,” Minerva’s attorney Anastasia Boden told the Seventh Circuit panel Thursday. Boden is a staff attorney with the libertarian public interest law firm Pacific Legal Foundation.

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