Spreadable butter

Dr Robert Norris and David Illingworth and the team at the NZDRI started working on the 'spreadable butter' project in the 1970s. Part of their impetus was a change to regulations which meant the English were no longer guaranteed to buy our butter, they had to want it.

To become viable, it had to still be butter, so the DRI researchers had to work out a way to use the same raw materials as 'normal' butter - cream and salt - to make a spreadable butter. They determined that the secret is not what you put in; it's what you take out.