LURPAK

Lurpak was the butter of choice at home when I was growing up in the U.K. Little did I know at the time that it was (and is) Danish.

Lurpak was started in 1888 as an export trademark for the 1,500 Danish dairies then in existence. Most of these were extremely local, and owned by the farmers in the area, who supplied the milk. Over the past 125 years, nearly all of these small units have either closed, consolidated or merged. Today, some 98% of Lurpak's Dkr.3 billion of sales is accounted for by Arla Foods, the giant of the industry. Arla has now applied to take over the trademark so that it owns it 100%; other dairies wishing to sell Lurpak can do so under a licence agreement. Arla's motive is the huge potential it sees for dairy products in emerging countries such as Russia and China.

The only problem with proper butter is that it tends to come out of the fridge hard, which makes it difficult to spread. Arla are tackling that particular problem by adding a small amount of rapeseed oil. If they succeed, then I may well become a Lurpak customer some 40 years after I stopped.

Walter Blotscher