Some recent articles show some confusion between cream, butterfat, butter, and buttermilk. See this prior post.
Soft (liquid) dairy products like coffee cream are included in Class II milk. These products include some butterfat and some milk. Products like cream cheese are included in Class III milk as a solid cheese. Buttermilk is a fluid product and is included in Class I milk. These products have steady demand and but are not major users of producer milk.
U.S. butter must contain at least 80% butter, and the remainder is primarily water. European butter standards by comparison, must contain 82% butter making European butter firmer at room temperature.
Now back to butter. The cream used for churning has around 40% butterfat and the remainder is milk. What is left after churning butter is called buttermilk. The name is misleading because buttermilk is only about 1% butter. It is called buttermilk because it is a byproduct of butter churning. It makes up about .1% of domestic fluid milk sales. Buttermilk is from conventional milk only, not organic milk. Churning breaks the thin protein layer surrounding the butterfat allowing the fat to coalesce, changing it from butterfat to butter. The churning process separates the butter from most of the liquid milk leaving two products, butter and buttermilk.
What is buttermilk used for? Buttermilk has qualities that can enhance baked goods as a liquid with better characteristics than just water. Is It used as a drink? Very infrequently.
Buttermilk is a byproduct just like whey and nonfat dry milk. The buttermilk must find a home. That means that prices are volatile and some of the time they are low. The U.S. is a major exporter of buttermilk (and buttermilk powder) and exports are up 36% from 2020 to 2024. With the increase in butter churning (See this earlier post) more buttermilk is available and as a byproduct and it must find a home. Because domestic demand for buttermilk is stable, the increased export percent is up significantly.
As covered is a recent post to this site, U.S. dairy is run on capitalist processes where supply and demand sets prices. The U.S. consumption of butter is up significantly but E.U. consumption is stable. In the case of buttermilk exports, the supply and demand are measured by global supply and demand, so export prices of buttermilk remain relatively stable.
WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?
The process of pricing tied to supply and demand keeps everything in balance. With increased domestic consumption (demand) for butter, butterfat prices are high. Finding a home for buttermilk is not a problem as there is global demand. With high butterfat prices, producers will find a way to increase the production of butterfat. If domestic consumption of butter keeps increasing, butter and butterfat will remain in low supplies and high prices. If domestic consumption of butter does level out or decrease, butterfat prices will fall, and producers will be less incented to increase butterfat. The system is self-correcting.
The most important thing for producers is to keep increasing levels of components. If domestic needs are met, there is plenty of exports available. See this recent post on component levels.
