Gold rush: why luxury butter is whipping up a frenzy with foodies

Margarine be damned – butter is back and bigger than ever. Sarah Barratt is here to spread the word

Homemade butter in all its forms and flavours is the newest trend sweeping social media (Getty)

Remember when Instagram was dominated by avo toast and matcha lattes? Well, move over green food: the future is golden. Yes, butter is the latest ingredient that’s whipping social media into a frenzy. People are churning their own, blending it with bone marrow and black garlic – and even eating it with a spoon from the packet. As a result, the butter hashtag boasts 24 billion views on TikTok alone. Avocado, meanwhile, sits at a measly 200 million.

“Fantastic butter can elevate everyday cooking,” says Thomas Straker, whose viral content kickstarted the trend. The London-based chef began uploading videos of himself whisking you-know-what with a variety of ingredients (marmite, miso, chicken skin) in 2020. Word quickly spread. Today, he is the poster boy for butter – boasting over 4 million followers on Instagram and TikTok combined. He has even launched his own brand: All Things Butter.

A great pack of butter, Straker says, begins with quality cream. His is sourced from an organic farm in Somerset and churned twice using machines previously used to make France’s famous Beurre d’Isigny. “The butter comes out unstructured with lovely cracks where salt can fall in. This makes the flavour stand out,” he says. Alongside salted and unsalted, All Things Butter is available flavoured with garlic and herbs, or chilli. “If you add liquid to our flavoured butter you can make a lovely emulsified sauce,” says Straker. “One of my favourite ways to use it is heating some in a pan then adding chicken stock. It’s great on pasta. Add parmesan and black pepper and you have a delicious dish.”