The humble buttery caught in a global economic crisis

THEY have sustained generations of north-east folk and are one of the best hangover cures known to man, although one would kill you if it was thrown from a tenement window.

The size of a small side plate and weighing about the same as a baby elephant, the humble buttery is a delicacy that has never quite gained popularity outside of its local roots.

There is probably a reason for that as when you actually analyse what is in it then you would run a mile whenever one was mentioned.

They are basically a heart attack on a plate but are delicious when smothered in butter with honey.

But now they are the latest victims of the cost-of-living crisis as prices of the north-east’s favourite salty staple are set to increase after Indonesia banned exports of palm oil which is a key ingredient.

The fact that they actually contained palm oil came as a bit of a surprise as I always thought they were made up of 70 per cent lard, 20% salt and about 10% granite.

Experts (I use that term loosely) say the buttery will be disproportionately affected by any price hike because it contains more palm oil than other baked goods.

Prices of the breakfast favourite have since risen by around 8% and there are fears they could go up even higher or disappear altogether due to spiralling costs.

If ever there was a tipping point in the cost-of-living crisis then this is it.

Rishi Sunak must surely act. The Chancellor, after all, famously admitted that he has a range of breads in his myriad of homes but I bet none can beat the buttery.

The finance ministers of the G7 nations must call an emergency meeting and pull out all the stops to save the buttery from extinction.

While the plight of the buttery is serious for the good folk of the north-east of Scotland, on a global scale it barely merits a mention – and rightly so given the state of the world economy.

But the buttery has been caught directly in the cross winds of the major issues currently affecting the global economy – obesity, the pandemic, the climate crisis and the conflict in Ukraine.

It could even come down to a straight fight for survival between the buttery and everyone’s favourite primate, the orangutang.

Lard was once a traditional ingredient for many cooked items including the buttery until producers switched to less fattening and damaging ones like palm oil.

However, palm oil production is blamed for the loss of traditional forests in Indonesia and Malaysia which are the habitat of orangutangs.

These are replaced by palm oil plantations which are not suitable for orangutangs, many of which are killed anyway during the deforestation.

Many producers in the UK typically use sustainable palm oil, which is harvested under a certified set of environmental and social criteria.

But then along came the global pandemic which has sent the price of palm soaring as demand from Indonesians outstrips supply – hence the export ban.

In any normal situation, producers could rely on other vegetable oils for cooking, but then Putin invaded Ukraine he sent this particular supply and demand situation went down the swannee.

Supply chains which have already been disrupted by Covid-19 are now being further complicated by the Ukraine conflict, which is causing shortages in ingredients like sunflower oil and raising the price of substitutes.

Ukraine and Russia account for about 60% of world production of sunflower oil, and the conflict has hit supplies hard.

Harvests have been paralysed and left many nations with limited stocks of edible oil and soaring prices for what’s left, which has worsened a food crisis in Africa and led to the export ban in Indonesia.

Some shoppers, most recently in

Britain, are being limited in their purchases of cooking oils, as supermarkets and restaurants adjust to the climbing costs.

Ironically, the price of lard, the ingredient removed from butteries in the first place, can be bought for 30p for a 250g pack.

A litre of sunflower is currently retailing at around £1.30 for a litre – at least for now anyway.

It appears that amidst the carnage in the global economy, lard is emerging as the big winner and may well make a widespread comeback as chefs and producers seek substitutes for cooking oil.

This will, of course, probably cause consternation amongst the nanny state public health officials, but so be it.

The survival of the buttery – and indeed the orangutang – is at stake.