Butter in the Öko-Test: Several brands are unsatisfactory!
“Most are not worth their money”
Created: 01/08/2023 09:54
By: Ines Baur
Many need them for cooking, baking, and under the topping - butter.
Experts take a close look at the food.
© Shotshop/Imago
17 out of 20 butter brands did not do well at all in the Oeko-Test butter test.
The experts find that most of the products tested are not worth their money.
Munich - It is the layer between bread and cheese.
It is a baking ingredient in many cakes and biscuits.
And she refines when cooking: butter.
But butter, like many other foods, has become expensive.
Fewer and fewer people can afford them now.
According to the Federal Statistical Office, the price of butter rose by 55.3 percent in October 2022 compared to the same month last year.
Half of the products have already cleared the three-euro hurdle.
Or approaches her.
If you treat yourself to a piece of butter, you rightly hope for quality.
If butter in the shop is too expensive for you, you can make butter yourself.
Experts from the trade journal Öko-Test took a closer look at butter.
You get a less than satisfactory result.
"Rising prices, record levels of mineral oil and lack of taste shake the image of the "good butter", according to the verdict of the testers.
"Most of the products in our test aren't worth their money, in our opinion."
Tested butter contaminated with mineral oil - also organic label
17 out of 20 products in the test were rated “inadequate” or “inadequate”, including five with an organic seal.
The main reason is the pollution with mineral oil, according to the result of Öko-Test.
A large part of the butter was so heavily contaminated that even good grades in animal husbandry could no longer raise the result.
The laboratory found saturated mineral oil hydrocarbons in 19 out of 20 products.
In levels that experts classify as “greatly increased”.
The residues from mineral oil accumulate in human fatty tissue.
Further in lymph nodes or organs like liver, spleen and lungs.
"Toxic effects are not yet known, but in our opinion the data is still too sparse to rule out long-term effects," says the test.
Butter in the test - only one cuts off with "good".
So there is a “poor” (grade 5) or “inadequate” (grade 6) 17 times.
Only one butter gets the rating "good".
One at least a "satisfactory" and another "sufficient".
Of the 20 products tested, seven are organic.
The test winner, rated "good", is the transparent dairy barrel butter Naturland organic sour cream butter.
It costs around 3.50.
"Satisfactory" gets the Andechser Natur Bio Almbutter sour cream butter, Bioland.
Of the conventional brands, the K-Classic German branded butter mildly acidified by Kaufland achieved the rating "sufficient".
Well-known brands perform poorly in the butter test
The organic manufacturers Alnatura and Dennree did poorly in the test.
Also Weihenstephan, Landliebe, Meggle and Kerrygold.
The cheaper own products from Aldi, Edeka, Penny, Lidl are also not convincing in the test.
Organic butter scores well in the butter test when it comes to animal welfare
During the test, the inspectors look not only at the quality, but also at how the dairy cows are kept.
There would be positive conventional examples.
But all in all, the cows behind the organic products come to pasture more often and, above all, longer, according to the result.
The animals were allowed to graze for six months or more with the five providers who sent the appropriate proof of grazing.
