Butter grading
Open-knowledge reference entry
Butter grading involves the grading, inspection, assessment and sorting of butter to quantify its quality, freshness, and conformity to legal requirements.
United States
Butter sold in the United States is assigned one of three letter grades; AA, A, and B. By a 1923 act of Congress, all butter sold in the United States must be composed of at least 80% milkfat. Butter is graded based on the sweetness of its flavor, the quality of cream the butter was made from, the smoothness of its texture, and the degree of flavor impurities such as acidity, bitterness, feed, malty, musty, weed, and whey. The grade indication of the butter is usually displayed in the most prominent area of the packaging, although it may also be displayed on the side or elsewhere.
When grading butter, the inspector begins with a score of 100. Each defect in flavor, texture, color, or saltiness results in a subtraction of one-half, one, or one and one-half points, depending on the characteristic and the degree of the defect, whether it is slight, definite, or pronounced. Butter that exceeds certain workmanship dis-ratings is rated on flavor only, and can not attain the highest grades.
Grade AA butter, made from sweet cream, is the highest grade of butter, has a sweet flavor, and is readily spreadable. If the butter is salted, the salt must be evenly distributed and not interfere with the smooth texture of the butter. To get this grade, the butter must achieve a score of at least 93 out of a possible 100.
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This entry incorporates text from “Butter grading” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.