The War Against Butter Is Over. Butter Won

Just ask one of the world’s largest margarine makers.

Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever spent more than 20 years trying to beat butter at its own game. But the maker of Flora, Country Crock, and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, appears ready to give up the fight.

“For the last 20 years or so, we have been too obsessed, overly obsessed on the fact that butter was opposed to margarine,” Antoine Bernard de Saint-Affrique, the head of Unilever’s Food division, told investors last month. “I’m happy to say that this time is over and we have changed. And we have changed in a very significant way.”

In what Unilever executives describe as a “fundamental turnaround,” the consumer products giant is now selling a spread made with butter. The company began making Rama, Germany’s best-selling brand of spreads, with butter back in September.