Chronic. After the galette, the pancake… And, on Candlemas, take out the plate of butter. Even if the fat is not at the heart of the recipe, leaving the spotlight to milk, eggs, sugar, flour and, above all, the gourmet filling, it plays a key role in the double salto crepe while cooking. Far from being a star, therefore, this everyday product, whose label we hardly look at, has nevertheless hit the headlines at the start of the year.
As soon as the New Year’s Eve lanterns went out, the pancake manufacturers have, in fact, turned the spotlight on the butter. The Federation of bakery and pastry companies was alarmed by the “frantic” rise in milk fat. And brandished upward curves feeding the sensational information. It claimed that its quotation had even exceeded the alert rating of 6,000 euros per tonne in December 2021, posting a doubling in one year.
A surge confirmed by the National Interprofessional Center for the Dairy Economy (Cniel). At the last score, in mid-January, he estimates at 69%, over one year, the increase in industrial butter in France, with a quotation above 5,500 euros per tonne. To explain it, he highlights a global demand that does not weaken. Thereby, “China, whose imports of this product have multiplied by almost six since 2010, maintains its appetite for milk fat in 2021, with purchases up 20% over the first ten months of the year. »underlines the Cniel, in a note.
The reopening of hotels and restaurants, after being put on hold for health reasons, has also revived shopping. However, at the same time, milk collection is in decline. Hence the upward pressure on the prices of industrial dairy products such as butter or skimmed milk powder.
“Supply” problem
However, specifies the Cniel: “The current tension on the supply of butter is mainly found in the supply of agri-food industries, that is to say, in bulk or concentrated butter. Contrary to what happened in 2017, a marked rise in prices and shortages of butter are not, for the moment, perceived in supermarkets. » The price of the butter wafer has not moved on the shelves. The true-false rise of butter.
Still, reading the price curve of this commodity in supermarkets is instructive. It jumped 30% after 2017. In the fall of that year, the price of industrial butter exceeded 7,000 euros per tonne. Suddenly, the shelves were empty. The “great bluff” of the shortage alerted the population, a sign of a commercial showdown between manufacturers and distributors. Finally, the rise in prices went well, but since then they have never melted, despite the decline in prices.
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