If I asked you what your house was made of you would probably say ‘timber’ or ‘ brick’ or ‘concrete’ and the reason you would say these words is because these materials make up either most or a large part of the structure. It makes sense. And so if I asked you what was in a chicken pie you would probably say ‘chicken’ even though you probably realise that a lot of the pie will be pastry and sauce and probably some vegetables. But even so, with knowledge that it won’t be all chicken, you would expect chicken to be a substantial part of the pie, maybe 30% or more.

So if I asked you what your house was made of and you said ‘cotton’ or you said the chicken pie was made of pepper, I would be surprised and, frankly, think you had a poor grip on reality, even though it was true that your house did contain cotton and there was pepper in the pie.

So, when I was shopping for spread tonight I was disgusted to find this product on the shelves. I am not as familiar with Irish law as I am with English law but surely this cannot be legal. If it is then the law needs changing because this is misleading to say the least and basically is is deliberately misleading.

So here goes. A big pack of Kerrymaid spread.

The pack suggests it is ‘made in Kerry’ (the address on the back is indeed Kerry, but that does not mean it is made there of course) and it may be trying to align itself to ‘Kerrygold’ which is butter and a successful Irish export. I suppose the ‘maid’ is trying to suggest milkmaids and other lovely cosy country images.

But the description says ‘delicious creamy spread made with buttermilk’. There is a general idea that this is creamy and buttery – it sounds great  – in fact it says it is delicious.

Now it doesn’t say there is cream in it, despite the suggestion that there is, but it does say that it has buttermilk in it – in fact it is ‘made with buttermilk’.

So how much buttermilk do you think is in it?

80%? Try again

50%? no – less

30%? nope

I am going to have to tell you I am afraid because unless you have a tub of this in your fridge I doubt you will guess.

Bearing in mind that the ingredients have to be listed in order of quantity in the product, turning the pack over reveals that the main ingredient is vegetable oil. That is rather vague – I hope it is not unethically sourced palm oil – but vegetable oil, if it is not hydrogenated it may be ok. But – this is odd – the next ingredient is salt – 1.6%. Only after this is there any mention of buttermilk. So Kerrymaid contains more salt than buttermilk! Despite the fact that it is ‘made with buttermilk’.

Excuse me but no! They have more right to say it is made of salt than to say it is made of buttermilk!

They even have the balls to warn that the product contains milk – only if you are lucky!

The crime is that they have to put colour and extra vitamins in to make it something like butter.

There a two lessons here:

If you want a buttery creamy taste eat butter

Kerrymaid – made with salt – now that’s something they don’t put on the front of the pack

buttermilk, kerrymaid spread, miseading food labelling, vegetable oil spread