SCARBOROUGH, Maine — Inside an industrial space, steps from the pounding surf, a mountain of just-churned butter is going gourmet.
Alicia Menard scoops handfuls of the bright yellow clouds into a giant mixer. Sea salt is added into what looks like cake batter, and a new batch of Casco Bay Butter materializes.
From the cover of Time Magazine to your neighborhood deli, butter is being touted as an all-natural fat that helps your brain function, makes your skin glow and carries no trans fat like margarine or other spreads.
Last year butter consumption in the U.S. reached its highest levels in four decades. According to the American Butter Institute, consumers are turning away from highly processed foods, artificial ingredients, and fats derived from partially hydrogenated vegetable oils.
At the vanguard of the surge is Menard and her partner Jennell Carter, who churn Maine cream into artisan butter in flavors such as fiery peach habanero, blue cheese and even pumpkin spice.
These passionate home cooks, who began conducting butter experiments with a KitchenAid, have experienced such demand for their craft product — which chefs from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Rockland tout as their secret weapon — they moved from sharing a kitchen in a Portland church to a new showroom and production facility in Scarborough.
“We are very cognizant of the way butter was made in the past,” Carter said, grabbing a spatula to pack a batch of sea salt butter, en route to a Whole Foods opening in Boston this weekend. “I like the science of turning cream into butter.”
The company, which turns 3 in March, makes 20 flavors, including lemon chive, maple and cilantro lime. The high butterfat (84 percent and up) attracts chefs including Kerry Altiero of Cafe Miranda in Rockland who uses it as a finishing sauce.
“I eat their butter every day,” said Altiero, who topped his farm, ocean, tree dish at Harvest on the Harbor with Casco Bay Butter in 2013 and took top honors in the cooking competition.
“The product is fantastic. They are using great cream from Maine to make this butter,” he said. “It’s about the character of this product, it’s different. You can taste the passion.”
That passion is centered on helping dairy farmers thrive in Maine. Above the entrance to their showroom is the mantra: “Support the farmers, make lots of happy butter, be happy and successful, earn a profit.”
Measuring their success in multiple ways, not just profit and loss statements, guides the four-person company.
“We realized that dairy businesses were dying off. We wanted to do something to add on and help,” said Carter, who seeks to spur the local food economy with chef-driven compound butters.
By using cream from Portland-based Oakhurst Dairy, they are creating a new market for local dairy.
“In Maine we have Kate’s [Homemade Butter], everything from Kate’s on is down hill,” said Marada Cook co-director of Crown O’ Maine Organic Cooperative, a Vassalboro-based distribution company that connects food producers and farmers in Maine to wholesale clients and carries 13 different Casco Bay Butters. “There was nothing better in terms of artisan butter until they started to fill that niche.”
The rise of butter and fall of margarine has played to the startup’s strengths. When Time Magazine came out with the cover story “Eat Butter” this summer “it was like Christmas in June,” Menard said.
But back on a spring day in 2012, the founders knew they had a winner when “we sold 54 units during a rainy farmers market in Kennebunk,” Menard recalled.
They haven’t shifted their focus, painstakingly packing by hand and corralling family members for “marathon” production days.
“The less you machine something, the more minimally processed, the more raw it is, [and] the better it tastes,” Menard said.
That taste comes with a higher price tag (between $5.50 to $7.50 for 5.5 ounces), but localvores are not deterred.
“If you were to buy artisanal cheese you would expect it to cost more. People are happy to pay for a dairy product of exceptional quality,” Cook said. “They love the butter and get addicted to it. It does well with retailers.”
After Thanksgiving the company landed a contract with Hannaford, where Casco Bay Butter Co. is now in 26 stores from Belfast to Dover, New Hampshire. Eventually they will be sold in all Northeastern Whole Foods stores, Menard said.
Distributors say their success goes beyond trendy flavors and the craft, made in Maine brand.
“Sometimes it’s hard for food companies to be consistent with quality, especially as a startup business,” Cook said. “I am very impressed that their product has not wavered in years.”
And the market has responded.
When the Cooperative first carried Casco Bay Butter Co. in July 2012 their first order was $300, last week it was $1,000.
“The idea that butter is not to be eaten because of cholesterol is a complete thing of the past,” Cook said. “A fat is not a fat is not a fat, and butter is not a villain.”
