Costco forced to recall 80,000 lbs of butter – because the label fails to mention it contains milk

While I get that this is a legal thing…

It also really shows how divorced from where our food comes from people are. Also, how many products that could be called “butter” that are completely artificial and have no dairy content at all.

Costco forced to recall food that was not labeled to the requirements. In this case, the butter is supposed to be labelled as containing milk. Now, you and me, we know that butter is made from milk or cream, but only a great fool would assume everyone knows what they know.

And, these labels aren't just for the lactose intolerant consumer. The allergen information is fed to computers that handle the automated distribution of products to various uses. That butter might end up as one of a hundred ingredients in a prepackaged donut. If the allergen isn't on the label, the person doing data entry may not realize it. Disney World killed a doctor just last year because of allergen exposure, and that shit happens all the time. It only made the news because Disney tried to enforce an arbitration clause the husband digitally accepted when he tried out Disney+.

The point is, this is not a story about overregulation or snowflakes being too sensitive. Costco fucked up, and their fuckup puts lives at risk. If you happened to buy the improperly labelled butter, congrats on your good fortune, because Costco is going to pay you for their fuckup. You don't have to discard perfectly good butter unless you cannot have dairy, and you didn't yet know that butter contains milk.

Yeah, I work in a restaurant and allergies are a real issue that we deal with nearly every day. There is no such thing as being "too cautious" when you are dealing with the literal life and death of another human.
- I have a lot of deadly food allergies, and I just, don't eat out anymore. Too many trips to the ER. Sucks, cause it makes travel difficult, to plan on cooking my own meals, and basically means I can't safely travel abroad anywhere I'm not 100% fluent in
My grandma, in her 86 years of life, still needs to check to see if butter has milk in it. She is the use case you mention that we take for granted! (Although at least the only real fallout of her blunder is indigestion and what she does to my bathroom when she visits and has lactose :x)
Now, you and me, we know that butter is made from milk or cream, but only a great fool would assume everyone knows what they know.

In this day and age of vegan "dairy" products, including butter and cheese (not to mention margarines), I don't think you can even reasonably assume butter has to have milk in it. Because there is a greater than 0% chance it doesn't.
Thanks for the informative post. I was all ready to poke fun at this move.
- You're not alone. The news media is a shit-stirring business run by oligarchs who want you to question science and government regulations. This is a relatively benign example, but it's a transparent one. The way the headline grabs you, the way it's written, and the social media commentary, it's all created to benefit the wealthy and make you think you're on their side.
Hang on a minute. My entire life there have been ingredients lists on food products, usually under the nutrition facts grid. More recently I've seen additional language on packaging that says something like "Warning: Contains nuts." Did they fail to put that "Warning: Contains milk" on there, or did they omit the ingredients list entirely (which, for butter, should be cream and maybe salt). Like...?

I also wonder if they'll be able to put the same butter into corrected packaging and still sell it.
- The brand’s salted and unsalted Sweet Cream Butter list cream as an ingredient on the packaging. However, the label does not warn consumers that the product “contains milk.”

Couldn't have solved this issue with a big batch of stickers?

That's probably what will happen -- stickers and restock.
- I don't think they can restock stuff after it goes out the door; that's an even worse sanitation risk.
For stuff still on the shelf, probably. For stuff already sold, no so much.
- For the stuff that's already sold, they don't have to destroy it, or do anything really, unless the customer returns it. Hardly any are going to. If the article counts those in the headline number, it's being a little dishonest.

Cool, a headline framing regulation as wasteful, not a fascist wedge at all

I can't believe it's butter!

What do folks think butter is made out of?

A lot of things, actually. Milk is so clearly and consistently marked as an allergen that I'll often as a vegan just check the allergens if I don't have any reason to suspect the use of meat products, meat byproducts, honey, or non-allergenic dairy ingredients.

I would probably still do a double-take and check the ingredients here, but with the movement to plant-based alternatives, you never know if someone who treats this the same way I do as basically a gold standard (because that's what it's supposed to be) will simply take it at face value. It's also plausible that someone without strong English literacy but with such an allergy would rely solely on the basic allergen label rather than trying to parse more complicated English words.

The reason it has to be strictly enforced like this too is that if you justify this as "well everyone knows ~~it's Butters~~ butter, so it doesn't really need a label", then it's not as trustworthy and therefore efficient to those who need it, and it risks drawing a line where not everyone is on the same page.
- Yeah, I agree. You generally want things to be easy to understand, more so if there are significant consequences for getting it wrong. Making sure that allergens are properly listed lowers the risk of someone accidentally buying something they shouldn't.
  
  Also, while this case is pretty obvious, is important to always insist that all major allergens are listed. Otherwise companies will slack off or make bad calls about when an allergen is obvious. It's like with guns: You should always treat them as ready to fire even when you think you know they're not because a mistake might get someone killed.
Next you'll tell me that brown sugar isn't just brown sugar and table salt isn't just salt!
- I once used my grandpa's salt on my food.
  
  Potassium Chloride. Those extra 8 electrons don't mean it tastes better.

Sounds like a lot but it's actually just 8 swimming pool sized tubs they mislabeled

okay guys hear me out. what if instead they gave all 80,000 butters to me. i’m one or the most lactose tolerant people i know, and i promise to put it all to good use.

i promise to put it all to good use

You're going to take a butter bath, aren't you?
- you don’t need to worry about that part. just give me the butter and i’ll take care of the rest

If it was already sold I doubt anyone would return it.

Vegans: I felt tricked

It won't say cow dairy so they can still get off on a technicality!

But that's not true? Butter is only the fat (and some minerals) of the milk. So milk contains butter but butter contaibs no milk.

The churning process isn't 100% effective at removing water, proteins, etc, so people that are allergic to milk can also react to butter. The milk isn't "milk" anymore, but it would be more confusing to say "contains milk fats, proteins, sugars, enzymes, hormones, antibodies, mucins and minerals", IMO.
- Ah, ok.