Banner Butter: The Better Butter!

Friday, May 30, 2014

You've seen it in our meals and in our Local Market, and if you've tried it you know exactly why we love Banner Butter! And we are happy to announce that the delicious butter just got even more delicious! Banner Butter has just rolled out a line of new cultured butter, something we quiclkly learned is the better butter! We chatted with Elizabeth McBath, the mastermind behind Banner Butter, to find out more.

Why start a butter company?

We were smitten with compound butters when we first saw Heidi Swanson's blog entry, on her blog 101 Cookbooks, on compound butters. The butters were absolutely beautiful and the compounds she came up with in her own kitchen were art too. We started looking for more pictures and recipes online, and noticed that more and more people seemed to be making compound butters in their own kitchen. We wanted to do that too. But the reality was, with two jobs and two children (and let's face it, with the back-breaking pace of life in Atlanta) we felt like we couldn't enjoy this beauty ourselves because we didn't have the time. And that stopped us dead in our tracks. How did our lives become so busy that we could no longer enjoy the simple beauty around it.

So with this realization -- well, we did what any American would do; we added even more on our plate! We wanted to start a business that ironically forced us to slow down -- to meet enthusiastic shoppers at farmers markets; to meet an incredible food photographer who makes it her life to see the beauty around her; to work with unbelievably talented graphic designers -- and see the beauty around us -- a beauty that was there all along, in our everyday. It was there in our butter.

What is the difference between the new and old Banner Butter?

Last year we sourced sweet cream butter from two Georgia farms, and then we added different herbs & spices to the butter to make different compound flavors. This year, we are buying cream from one Georgia farm and churning it into cultured butter ourselves. 

Your butters are now cultured. What does that mean?

In America, the typical butter we find in stores is a sweet cream butter. In Europe, the typical butter is cultured. Cultured butter is creamier and a bit tarter than sweet cream butter. In Europe, butter is the star of the show; here, it's more of a side note. In Europe, you're apt to eat butter by itself on the spoon -- it's that good! Now, our butters to be that good too! With culturing, we churn it slowly in our small-batched churn. In the end, we will have spent hours and hours more on one butter than the traditional sweet cream butter makers that you see in the big grocery stores.

How did you come up with the compound butter flavors?

We first hired Katherine King, a pastry chef at Aria to help us come up with our initial round of compound butters. Since then, Banner's own Mary Ellen Yupari created our Lemon Mustard Chive butter, and Andrew created the popular Cinnamon Cardamom Ginger butter. We've now hired our own chef -- Catherine Weaver -- whose helped us perfect our different compounds, and created our Sea Salt recipe. We all work together on each recipe.

What does local mean to you?

What is local. Consistent with our initial desire to embrace the everyday beauty in front of our eyes, we're committed to remaining local. We will source our cream from Southern Swiss Dairy, a local farm. And as we learn more and more about the local food movement in our midst, we're being introduced to different sources for our compound ingredients. Last year, while at the Peachtree Road Farmers Market, we sourced herbs and garlic from Burge Organic Farms. We're exploring more options for local, year-round sourcing as well. But to remain true to sourcing locally, we have seasonal rotating compounds. Last year, we sold a Strawberry Mint compound butter in the late-spring. And we'd love to get people's input on what compounds we should create each season using the ingredients that are in season at that particular moment. We love hearing from our customers!

Local also means supporting your community.  We've noticed that most companies give money to big, national charities. We want our money to go to local charities that are important to that particular local store. And we want our local customers to tell us what's important to them in their area -- whether it be their local school, their local homeless shelter, their local animal rescue, or whatever it might be. 

What sets you apart from other compound butter makers?

There really aren't many other compound butter companies in the country. But we're different from the few that there are in quie a few ways. First, we're not co-packed, meaning we do all the packing. We're a small-batch butter makers, which means that, if you buy butter from us, you know that Banner employees have made it in our own small churn, and we've hand wrapped our butters and hand placed our labels on the packaging. We don't use plastic tubs. We're not looking for the fast-paced, churn-em-out style. Each of our butters gets special, personal attention. Second, as I explained before, we're truly local, and are offering seasonal butters to highlight what's in season in Georgia at that moment.