My friend said to me, “Have you noticed something about the butter at BJs?”
I said, “It hardens your arteries?”
She said, “No, not that.”
She had recently switched to baking with unsalted butter, the better to control the amount of salt that went into her cookies and cakes. But they’re still buttering bread with salted butter, and therefore she buys both varieties.
My friend is, if you haven’t figured out already, very logical and organized. She’s ambitious: I could never do what she’s doing. I’d be forever running out of one or the other variety, and chaos would ensue. Civilization would end. It’s better just to buy the salted.
She said, “You know what color package the salted butter is?” I know that: red. She said, “And the actual sticks of butter are in what color sleeves?” I know that too: clear with blue writing.
She said, “The unsalted butter comes in a blue package. And the sticks of butter inside are wrapped in a clear wrapper with red writing.”
I started to laugh, and she said, “I know I should read the package, but come on! You’re in the middle of cooking and you don’t think about it. You just grab the right color package, except it’s not the right one because they’ve reversed the colors.”
I said, “You could write to them for an explanation.”
She said, “I’m going to!”
Here’s what I figure: BJs is probably using the LandOLakes plant to package its butter, and they’re using the same interior wrappers. LOL salted butter does, I believe, come in a package with bluish writing.
BJs needed a package for their generic butter, so they figured, yellow is a good background for a butter package, and what colors stand out nicely against yellow? Well, red and blue are also primary colors, so we’ll just make one red and the other blue.
The packaging has used this color scheme for at least the last nine years, but maybe my friend’s letter will create a rainbow of buttery options for us generic butter-users who want to reach into the fridge and grab the correct stick of artery-hardening goodness. Maybe.
What about buying unsalted, and salting the bread when you butter it?