Oh mon Dieu

Croissant fad fuels butter crisis

FRANCE: France is suffering the worst butter shortage since German occupation as a result of its return to favour, low output and a Chinese fad for croissants.

Supermarkets have been hardest hit, with butter shelves empty around the country, even in the dairy heartlands of Normandy and Brittany.

‘‘Because of a shortage of French milk, our suppliers cannot fulfil our butter orders,’’ a sign read at an Intermarche store in Rouen.

Panic buying has accelerated la crise du beurre and raised fears for the festive season’s butter-loaded delicacies such as yule logs. Restaurant managers and bakers have been raiding supermarkets to maintain stocks and avoid rising prices from suppliers.

Growing demand has pushed up butter prices around the world but France, the EU’s secondbiggest dairy producer after Germany, has been hardest hit because big brands are in conflict with supermarkets over prices. The supermarkets refuse to pay above their agreed rates so producers are diverting output to higher-profit exports or selling direct to pastry chefs.

Surging demand for butterbased French pastries in China and the Middle East has also soaked up supplies.

Meanwhile, the West has turned away from substitutes after reports saturated fat is not as bad as thought. A study by the University of Cambridge in 2014 concluded that there was no ‘‘clearly supportive evidence’’ to encourage the cutting of saturated fat from diets.

‘‘The rehabilitation of animal fats has caused demand for butter to explode,’’ Gerard Calbrix, head of economic affairs at the Association of French Dairy Producers, said.

The end in 2015 of EU milk quotas that had been created to demolish a ‘‘butter mountain’’ started a cycle that has led to wholesale butter prices almost doubling since March 2016 to reach €7000 (NZ$12,000) a tonne. Overproduction after the end of quotas caused a drop in the price of butter, prompting producers to divert milk to other uses, such as making cheese.

At the same time, New Zealand, the world’s biggest milk exporter, cut production.

Stephane Travert, the agriculture minister, appealed for calm this week, calling the butter shortage temporary. But industry managers said production would not rise for months. –