Butter -Best Before Date

[pacuk01]

Why does UK block butter have a short shelf life compared French President butter? I recently purchased some UK butter and it has a life of 4 to 6 weeks, but the President butter carries on for ages nearly 4 months. The ingredients do not help

[Old_Geezer]

My guess is legal and commercial decisions.

Does one really last longer than the other ? Put a pat of each on the shelf and see if they go off together.

[pacuk01]

My only thought was that maybe we have more of our butter stored (the good old butter mountain) so it doesn't get to shops so quickly. The leave a piece of each out and see when it goes off doesn't really work as I don't know the manufacture date, I only know the use by date

[bhg481]

The same seems to be true of milk. We have bought milk in France and Germany whilst on holiday and found the shelf-life was longer than that on British milk bought when we got back home.

[EDDIE51]

The 'butter mountain' disappeared years ago. I think the date is set by the individual manufacturer so UK producers choose to set an earlier date.

[follyfancier]

have you compared the salt content on each one, there could be more of it in the French one because salt is a preservative

[pacuk01]

Yea, the one with the longest date is the unsalted. When I said "butter mountain" I wasn't meaning the one we had years ago, but just purely we have a bigger stock of our own butter.

[ladybirder]

If my butter of choice is on offer I may buy 2-3 packs and would then freeze it. I don't defrost until I'm ready to use so don't really have to bother then about use by dates.
The butter doesn't seem any different whether it's been frozen or not whereas cheese goes all crumbly when defrosted.

[gingejbee]

Butter in this country doesn't have a "use by" date...it has a "best before" date - quite different things. (You seem to confuse the two, because you mention both).

[Peter Pedant]

I ate butter two years after its sell by date ( I had kept it in the fridge )
and it as perfect ...

they have dug up butter in a peat bog from 250AD and it was perfect!
no it wasnt - actually and they made butter differently then apparently

[pacuk01]

Sorry that is my mistake, they are both best before

[Old_Geezer]

Do all UK producers use the same equation for working out the date ? Always seems to be that some supermarkets have milk with a date a day or two later than another. Unsure if that is a more pessimistic date calculation or longer in storage before it hit the shelves.

Of course the bigger problem is the supermarket often not having the milk I'm looking for on the shelves. I don't understand it, they seem to know what I will be looking for and ensure it's not there !

[Old_Geezer]

Sorry got distracted by bhg481's post. I'm sure the same applies to butter :-)