Butter is one of the most versatile ingredients; You can use it to flavor steak, bake cookies, bake bread, or even as a carrier for Seasoning to add flavor to your food. To raise the modest fat, ButterBae.Co (ButterBae) makes kombu butter (edible kelp), which is a buggy butter mixed with spiced kombu in spices like shoyu, dashi, and even caviar, for example.
On how to use them, founder Samantha recommended, “On bread, thick layers of biscuits, toss them over steamed vegetables, over grilled seafood and meats, add them to your favorite pasta sauce, or as a final touch on a warm soup bowl.”
She added that customers had also roasted Wellington chicken and beef with butter caviar to recreate the gourmet dishes at home.
Real Blue Food Lovers
The creator of ButterBae is a Penang housewife who has established himself as a true blue food worker who lives to eat. It was only during MCO that her inner chef was revived, realizing that other foodies like her were agonizing to try fine dining again. This was also coupled with a spike in Malaysian bread counts at home during the lockdown.
She said, “I thought it would be interesting to start a production line with butter to enjoy (as a kind of bread) with home-baked sourdough as I noticed that many talented bakers also appeared after MCO.”
Samantha said learning to make butter was a personal journey. I followed videos and recipes online to gain basic combo butter making skills. “I learned about the health properties of kelp in general, but it also lends a delicate boost of umami to butter and foods,” she explained.
After learning it, she began experimenting with her flavors, developing recipes for producing various varieties such as caviar, truffles, and truffle bacon butter. On top of that, they also make vegetable butter to satisfy that segment of the market that may not have many options.
After countless trials and errors, she began distributing samples to her friends, who then urged her to start selling the products. Thus, ButterBae launched in August 2020.
Who eats this buggy butter?
Samantha responds to the Vulcan Post: “We think our butter really works for everyone. We have many fans who are young as well as elderly people who enjoy it, as well as foodies.”
Commonly used in gourmet cooking, Complete french food Actually was One of the first Malaysian companies are packing umami butter during MCO. The restaurant sells combo butter for RM60 for 3 packages of 80g each.
As for the ButterBae spreads, a 100-gram jar can cost anywhere between RM18 for the original combo butter to RM38 for the truffle caviar. Other variants include Truffle Bacon (23 RM), Miso Butter combo (RM19) and Vegetable Combo Spread (RM18), to name a few.
When ButterBae was first launched, it was often compared to restaurant, which helped educate the public about such a product. On the downside, Samantha offered to compete.
“We have always tried to advise our customers to have an open mind while trying our products,” she said. To maintain its position in the market, Samantha tries to maintain the consistency of its butter by making it in small batches. Unfortunately, this leads to other problems.
It’s like shipping COVID-19 vaccines
Another challenge that followed selling such a product was convincing customers to purchase butter in the first place, since it has a shelf life of only one month. Moreover, customers are advised not to stock up, as the quality of the product will deteriorate if kept for a long time.
Therefore, Samantha has to patiently explain that the butter is made without preservatives and stabilizers, thus helping clients gain confidence in the spread.
but that is not all. As words spread, buyers from Kuala Lumpur also gained attention, presenting Samantha with a new problem: shipping. Selling refrigeration-based products requires cold trucks for interstate delivery, and they are not cheap.
For example, orders of up to 3 kg via carriers from Butterworth to KL will cost around RM30. Within Penang, it will only be around RM12. Hence, for interstate clients, it would make sense to do so Group purchaseWhere communities can consolidate their orders and split delivery costs.
That was an issue Samantha had faced during lockdowns when interstate travel was banned. When that wasn’t the case, she personally made trips to KL herself on a monthly basis with butter in an ice cooler, and got her customers to pick up or Lalamove products from a central location.
To me, this does not seem like a sustainable way to handle the logistics of a business hoping to grow. But if Samantha’s plans work as intended, it will ultimately secure delivery and warehouse partners who can reduce shipping and travel costs to make the products more affordable for customers.
For now, her methods seem to be working. With loyal customers restocking their butter every time they empty a jar, ButterBae has sold 2,080 jars as of the end of March 2021.
Featured image credit: Samantha, founder of ButterBae.Co
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