Butter Shortage Looms Over Bakeries as Holidays Approach: 'My Nightmare'

With a butter shortage potentially looming on the horizon just before the start of the holiday season, one baker took to TikTok to share her concern.

Rebecca McBride, the owner and baker of Batch Please Cookie Co posted a video on her TikTok account @batchpleasecookieco in which she panned around a Sam's Club store location and said there was no butter she could buy.

"Scariest thing is happening for us bakers—no butter is a problem," read the text over the video, which was viewed nearly 1 million times. "That would be ZERO butter at Sam's. Lovely."

The United States Department of Agriculture reported on the demands for butter in various regions around the country.

While the USDA said those in the central region said the demands are being met, some retailers in the West said they "underestimated their needs" and need more product.

"Meanwhile in the Northeast, butter inventories are available, though some contacts are concerned that increased holiday demand will contribute to shortages in the coming months," the report said.

Data compiled by the agency also showed that the amount of butter in storage facilities is much lower as of September 2022 compared to September 2021.

"We are definitely seeing some butter shortages in our area. We are able to source what we need but the prices have increased," Scott Calvert, the president of the Retail Bakers of America and owner of Tootie Pie Company and The Cake Plate, wrote to Newsweek.

He said supply chain issues this year, global concerns and weather-related crop issues have contributed to the stress on bakeries since late last year.

Now that butter may be the latest ingredient added to the list of shortages, Calvert said bakeries may face several challenges.

"Many of us make a disproportionate amount of our income in Q4," he explained. "Shortages of our standard supplies can cause us to reduce what we are able to sell, possibly substituting an alternative product that we may not have worked with previously, along with increasing our costs and shrinking our margins."

Some bakers will purchase extra product to stockpile through the holiday season, but Calvert noted that not everyone has the room or money to buy and store what they need.

He recommended that bakers focus on purchasing their top ingredients while taking their budget and space constraints into consideration.

"Even if an operator is not seeing a shortage at the moment, bakeries will likely feel the price increase in the near future," Calvert said. "Buy extra at the current price and store it in the freezer until needed."

In her video, McBride turned in a circle to show while the shelves were stocked with some dairy products, there were no units of butter she would be able to use.

Some viewers pointed out there was the butter brand Kerrygold in the store, but McBride said in a follow-up video she's never used that brand in her baking before and was unsure how it would react with her recipes.

"Kerrygold is very expensive and I haven't tested it with my recipes," she told Newsweek. "If I started using it in orders, that would change the cost of what I have to charge my customers."

She also addressed some commenters who suggested that she make her own butter in the second video. McBride said while she knew how to make butter, she did not have the time to make the amount of butter needed to run her business and produce her decorated sugar cookies.

A baker who does her work from home, McBride said that 30 pounds of butter typically lasts about a week and a half. She goes shopping every other week to pick up the supplies needed for her business, which involves filling orders and teaching baking classes.

This is not the first shortage she's run into as a baker.

She said that last holiday season, she had trouble finding confectionary sugar and brown sugar. Finding these sugars became so difficult that McBride requested that her parents ship her bags of them.

And, McBride has limited options regarding where she can go grocery shopping because of where she lives in southern Texas.

She said she managed to find butter not long after she posted her initial video, as seen in a third video. However, McBride remains concerned about whether this is a problem she will be facing throughout the holiday season and pointed out that there was a higher price tag attached to the butter.

"It would have an extremely negative effect on my business," she said. "I would really have to reduce what I'm baking."

In addition to taking fewer orders, McBride said it can impact her baking classes, which would take a hit on her revenue.

These new potential challenges may cause McBride to look at how she will maintain her business in the new year.

While there were some viewers who were quick to suggest that McBride make her own butter or purchase what is available, others shared their sympathies for the obstacle.

"My store finally stocked imperial bakers butter after months," a viewer wrote. "It's been rough for bakers."

"Good luck in your butter search," wrote another viewer. "Crazy times when it's shortage after shortage."

"This is my nightmare..and I'm not a baker but butter is the key to life," a comment read.

"I don't think these prices will ever go down," one viewer said. "This is so sad. The grocery bill keeps going up."

In January, shoppers were affected by a cream cheese shortage, which was first reported in December 2021 following an October cyberattack against the largest U.S. cheese manufacturer.

Many parents faced a baby formula shortage just before the start of the summer, while the FDA recently announced a shortage of what consumers know as Adderall, which prompted a spike in searches for "caffeine vs. Adderall."