8 Largest Butter Brands In The United States

You’d be hard-pressed to find an American home that doesn’t have at least a couple of sticks of butter on hand. After all, this churned dairy product is useful for cooking, spreading on toast, and more.

Given its popularity, it’s no surprise that there are a few well-known and successful butter brands. These brands produce their own butter and then sell it throughout the United States. Each brand even has different types of butter to choose from, from unsalted to salted.

So, what are the best-selling butter brands in the U.S. today? To answer that, we’ve gathered a list of the top eight best-selling butter brands in the United States, based on their 2020 dollar sales.

1. Land O’Lakes Jobs (Overview)

2. Challenge Dairy Products Jobs (Overview)

3. Darigold Jobs (Overview)

4. Clover Stornetta Farms Jobs (Overview)

Detailed List of the 8 Best-Selling Butter Brands in the United States

1. Land O’Lakes

   2020 Dollar Sales: $214.09 million
   Parent Company: Land O’Lakes Inc.

   By far the most popular butter brand in America, you’d be hard-pressed not to find Land O’Lakes at your local grocery store. This brand was founded 100 years ago in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The name of the brand actually comes from the fact that Minnesota is known for its many lakes.

   Land O’Lakes operates on a massive scale, with around 10,000 employees and 300,000 agricultural producers who create and distribute the brand nationally. On average, these workers handle over 12 billion pounds of milk per year.

   Land O’Lakes products include spreadable butter and stick butter. On the spreadable side, they sell butter with canola oil, honey butter, cinnamon sugar butter, garlic herb butter, and flaxseed butter, with their most popular being their Butter with Olive Oil and Sea Salt.

   While their stick butter is more simple, they sell everything from whipped to non-whipped and salted to unsalted.

   In recent years, this brand has made the news with its political and technological advancements. In 2018, Land O’Lakes named Beth Ford as its first female CEO. Ford is also the only third openly gay woman CEO to run a Fortune 500 company. On the technological side, in 2019, Land O’Lakes completed the first cross-country commercial freight run using a self-driving truck.

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2. Kerrygold

   2020 Dollar Sales: $101.07 million
   Parent Company: Ornua

   Kerrygold is the only non-American butter brand on this list, which makes its number two spot even more impressive. The brand was founded in Dublin, Ireland, back in 1961. Today, this Irish butter sells worldwide and is shipped to Asia, Europe, Middle East, North America, Africa, and Australia.

   Kerrygold’s parent company, Ornua, is one of the most profitable corporations in Ireland. Ornua chose the name Kerrygold for their butter brand to evoke a good Irish sense of “farming, naturalness, goodness and above all quality milk”.

   This brand produces a variety of spreadable and sticks butter, including unsalted and salted butter, garlic herb butter, butter with olive or canola oil, and reduced-fat butter.

3. Challenge Dairy Products

   2020 Dollar Sales: $48.82 million
   Parent Company: California Dairies Inc.

   Being produced in California since 1911, Challenge Butter is one of the most popular butter brands on the West Coast. Being as old as it is, the brand’s founding staff consisted of only four people: a manager, assistant manager, bookkeeper, and delivery salesman. All of their deliveries were made via a wagon and rented horse.

   Today, this brand is made by just over 150 employees. Pretty impressive, given its high sales. The brand also has several products, including salted and unsalted butter, European-style butter, spreadable butter, whipped butter, and even lactose-free butter.

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4. Cabot

   2020 Dollar Sales: $12.8 million
   Parent Company: Agri-Mark Cooperative Company

   Founded in 1919, Cabot Butter is a staple of New England markets. The brand was originally produced by Cabot Farmers Cooperative Creamery but was taken over by Agri-Mark Cooperative Company in 1992.

   Today, the brand is produced by roughly 300 employees, mostly in Vermont. Though, it has one facility in Portland, Maine. Each location produces the butter and offers specialty foods from local vendors. Some people actually take trips to visit these locations, as you can get souvenirs, learn history, and receive a tour from the visitors center.

   Because the Cabot brand is also incredibly well known for their cheeses, they actually have a rather small selection of butter to choose from. Their three major products are unsalted, salted and whipped butter.

5. Tillamook

   2020 Dollar Sales: $12.67 million
   Parent Company: Tillamook County Creamery Association

   Tillamook is one of the oldest butter brands on this list, founded in 1909. The brand’s parent company is the Tillamook County Creamery Association (TCCA), which produces a variety of other dairy products. The main creamery that produces Tillamook butter is located two miles north of the city of Tillamook, but the TCCA also owns at least 100 dairy farms in the county.

   The TCCA employs close to 900 people in Oregon and is by far the largest employer in Tillamook County. While Tillamook butter is most popular on the West Coast, it is sold in 50 states around the country.

   Due to the fact that the TCCA produces everything from cheese to ice cream, but Tillamook butter brand only has two variations: salted and unsalted butter.

6. Darigold

   2020 Dollar Sales: $11.39 million
   Parent Company: Northwest Dairy Association

   Another West Coast butter brand, Darigold, was founded in 1920. Today, this butter is sold in several states, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Utah, Nevada, and Hawaii.

   The brand’s parent company is the Northwest Dairy Association, which operates dairy farms in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. In 2010, this company merged with the Montana dairy cooperative Country Classic, which significantly increased milk production to over 8,600,000,000 pounds per year.

   That being said, Darigold only specializes in two different sweet-cream butters, their Natural Salted Butter and their Farmer’s Reserve Extra Creamy Sea-Salted Butter.

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7. Clover Stornetta Farms

   2020 Dollar Sales: $6.46 million
   Parent Company: Mulas Dairy Company

   Produced in Sonoma County, California, Clover Sonoma was founded as a brand in 1916. Currently, the brand gets produced from various farms across Sonoma County, Marin County, and Mendocino County.

   While Clover Sonoma had modest beginnings, its production output increased significantly in the 1990s. For example, in June 1991, the brand started production in a newly constructed milk processing facility in Petaluma. This would later become the brand’s headquarters. During this time, there was also a shift from manual labor to automated plants, which tripled output.

   Overall, Clover is well known for its effort to produce butter and other dairy products sustainably. No growth hormones are used in their products, and they recycle 100% of their manure. Clover Sonoma even rotates their pastures and provides guaranteed clean drinking water for the benefit of their cows.

   That being said, the brand’s main products include lactose-free butter, organic unsalted butter, salted butter, and European-style butter.

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8. Keller’s

   2020 Dollar Sales: $5.5 million
   Parent Company: Dairy Farmers of America

   Last but not least, Keller’s is the eighth most popular butter brand in the U.S. and just so happens to be the oldest on this list as well.

   Founded in 1906, the brand saw its first major expansion between 1940 and 1962. During this time, Keller’s brand expanded from two creameries to owning 12 local dairies and egg companies. Still, Keller’s is centered around Philadelphia and surrounding states.

   Today, Keller’s has been a subsidiary of Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) since 2002. The DFA is the largest dairy company in the United States.

   Overall, Keller’s most noteworthy butter products include their salted and unsalted butter, as well as their whipped butter.

Author

Jack Flynn

Jack Flynn is a writer for Zippia. In his professional career he’s written over 100 research papers, articles and blog posts. Some of his most popular published works include his writing about economic terms and research into job classifications. Jack received his BS from Hampshire College.