Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
- HaifongWangchuck
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Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
A lot of supermarkets in Siem Reap (e.g, AAA Supermarket, Asia Supermarket, etc.) will sell generic, unbranded butter at ~5USD/kg, which is extremely cheap compared to how much butter usually costs when you buy the imported French stuff.
I was extremely skeptical at first, but tbh...it doesn't taste bad at all, and actually akin to Anchor butter from New Zealand. A slight grassy aftertaste, very rich, yellow colour, and no signs of adulteration or mischief. I just baked some chocolate chip cookies with it, and it honestly came out really tasty.
What explains this? Is this local butter from Khmer farmers? Is this illegally obtained butter? It's never branded and always comes in generic grocery store plastic-wrap:
- Ghostwriter
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Re: Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
The legend says it's made of breast milk leftovers, collected from a string of maternities, resold in bulk to a dairy transformer who makes affordable butter and pizza cheese for Siem Reap top gourmets willing to support alternative & middlemen-free local business initiatives.
Spoiler:
Re: Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
OT, is Ghee (clarified butter) sold in Cambodia?
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Re: Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
It's possibly the home-made 'butter' that they nam pang sellers make and use.HaifongWangchuck wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 12:45 am
A lot of supermarkets in Siem Reap (e.g, AAA Supermarket, Asia Supermarket, etc.) will sell generic, unbranded butter at ~5USD/kg, which is extremely cheap compared to how much butter usually costs when you buy the imported French stuff.
I was extremely skeptical at first, but tbh...it doesn't taste bad at all, and actually akin to Anchor butter from New Zealand. A slight grassy aftertaste, very rich, yellow colour, and no signs of adulteration or mischief. I just baked some chocolate chip cookies with it, and it honestly came out really tasty.
What explains this? Is this local butter from Khmer farmers? Is this illegally obtained butter? It's never branded and always comes in generic grocery store plastic-wrap:
I could be wrong, but I think it's made from hand-whipped cooking oil with egg yolks.
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- Jerry Atrick
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Re: Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
I have seen this stuff marked as "Australian butter" in minimart. I presumed that "Australian butter" is code for MargarineHaifongWangchuck wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 12:45 am
A lot of supermarkets in Siem Reap (e.g, AAA Supermarket, Asia Supermarket, etc.) will sell generic, unbranded butter at ~5USD/kg, which is extremely cheap compared to how much butter usually costs when you buy the imported French stuff.
I was extremely skeptical at first, but tbh...it doesn't taste bad at all, and actually akin to Anchor butter from New Zealand. A slight grassy aftertaste, very rich, yellow colour, and no signs of adulteration or mischief. I just baked some chocolate chip cookies with it, and it honestly came out really tasty.
What explains this? Is this local butter from Khmer farmers? Is this illegally obtained butter? It's never branded and always comes in generic grocery store plastic-wrap:
Re: Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
I doubt it's real butter given the prices of milk.HaifongWangchuck wrote: ↑Sat Oct 07, 2023 12:45 am
A lot of supermarkets in Siem Reap (e.g, AAA Supermarket, Asia Supermarket, etc.) will sell generic, unbranded butter at ~5USD/kg, which is extremely cheap compared to how much butter usually costs when you buy the imported French stuff.
It doesn't look as nice as a well packaged piece of butter as I know it too.... More like margarine which wasn't properly cooled all the time.
Spoiler:
- HaifongWangchuck
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Re: Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
Thing is, it tastes like real butter (even has a slightly grassy aftertaste), melts in one's hands like real butter, and makes really good cookies like real butter; if it was eggs whipped with oil, it wouldn't work in recipes and if it was margarine, it would taste like margarine and melt like margarine (especially considering that palm oil and soybean oil, the two most likely replacement oils, don't melt like butter do), but it's almost certainly real butter, I just don't know where from or of what origin.
- HaifongWangchuck
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Re: Why is this butter so inexplicably cheap?
According to Selina Wamucii (a Kenyan agricultural collective that works with farmers in the 3rd world and also does analytics), the price is well in line with the wholesale price of generic butter in Cambodia:
So I have no doubt that it's real butter, as that's well within the price range of bulk, generic butter. Perhaps it's made from butterfat leftover from the yogurt industry? Imported from India (it does taste somewhat like Amul now that I think of it)?The retail price range for Cambodia butter in October is between US$ 5.31 and US$ 9.8 per kilogram or between US$ 2.41 and US$ 4.44 per pound(lb).
Last edited by HaifongWangchuck on Sat Oct 07, 2023 10:39 am, edited 2 times in total.
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