Ban on Irish butter sparks fight

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin resident Jean Smith snatches up entire stocks of her beloved Kerrygold Irish butter from stores when visiting family in Nebraska, thanks to an antiquated law in her dairy-obsessed state that bans it and any other butter that hasn’t been graded for quality.

Tired of trekking across state lines to stock up, she and a handful of other Wisconsin butter aficionados filed a lawsuit last week challenging the law, saying local consumers and businesses “are more than capable of determining whether butter is sufficiently creamy, properly salted, or too crumbly.” No government help needed, they say.

On the books since 1953, the law is strict: It requires butters to be rated on various measures — including flavor, body and color — by the federal government or people licensed as butter and cheese graders with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Wisconsin’s grading scale dictates that the highest-graded butter must “possess a fine and highly pleasing butter flavor.” Graders might describe a butter as “crumbly,” “gummy” or “sticky,” and its color as “mottled,” “streaked” or “speckled.”

Anybody convicted of selling unlabeled or ungraded butter is subject to a fine between $100 and $1,000 and six months in jail.

Wisconsin is the only state in the nation with such a stringent butter provision.