A severe shortage of butter has become prevalent in Israel over the past few days, with some supermarket chains running completely out of the product and stocking shelves instead with its unsatisfying and unhealthy substitute, margarine.
Mamon Magazine has learned that the Israel Dairy Board and the Agriculture Ministry have appealed to the Treasury with a demand to increase butter imports from Denmark and Holland by 400 tons.
The dairy market is protected and allows almost no importation, and that which exists is under tight supervision by the Industry, Trade, and Labor Ministry. Only around 550 tons are imported annually, in a market of some 9,000 tons of local production.
The Dairy Board explained that the shortage derives from a rise in global butter prices, coupled with a 5% increase of demand for dairy products in Israel in 2010, which forced manufacturers to stretch thin their milk supply.
The board also said it is working to end the shortage by asking dairy farmers to increase milk production and its fat content.
{Ynet/Matzav.com Israel}
There is only a shortage of butter that is under proper hashgacha. Tnuva is selling butter that is made from milk that was milked on Shabbos.
Just curious – How does a farmer increase milk production – give out gold stars to the cows that yield the most milk? Smiley stickers? Winkies?
Your headline says it’s a heat-induced shortage but the article says otherwise: The Dairy Board explained that the shortage derives from a rise in global butter prices, etc.
Here we go again! Just another excuse for the greedy, thieving retailers to raise the prices on everything, to ripp us off! Esrogim, bread, milk, Chumashim, matzhas, eggs, wheat, flour, pants, seforim shranks, peanut butter, etc…! They are always looking for new innovative ways to raise prices for no good reason, other than to be mekayim genaiva!
No butter, no chumus. It’s hard to be a piece of bread in E”Y lately!
“unsatisfying and unhealthy substitute,” margarine. Why the editorializing? – may not even be true.
There’s got to be more to this than meets the eye. First of all, the summers in Israel are usually hot. This year was the first in recent history that there was such a severe butter shortage. If heat was the cause, why isn’t there a shortage every year?
Secondly, it seems that only Tenuvah is having a shortage. Tarah butter is very much available. Are Tarah cows immune from the heat?