Milwaukee custard stand owners, customers licked by rising prices. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 8/19/2014)
Who's to blame? The culprit is butterfat — the fat portion of milk that is an essential ingredient in custard, ice cream and butter.
"The butter price is what determines the value of butterfat, and our butter prices have been going up, up, up the last several months," said Mark Stephenson, who follows global dairy markets as director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "As butter goes, other products follow."
Ice cream is 12% to 14% butterfat, Stephenson said. Frozen custard is essentially ice cream that has had egg yolks blended into it. That mixture makes it creamier and softer than ice cream. (The ingredients that determine the difference between ice cream and frozen custard are governed by federal law.)
Related reading:
Butter Surges to 16-Year High as U.S. Exports Cut Reserves. (Bloomberg, 7/24/2014)
Market-driven. The spot price of butter has surged 71 percent this year, after yesterday reaching the highest close since September 1998, and butter futures on the CME jumped 58 percent, touching a record $2.50 today before dropping.
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