The History of Butter in the US
Butter companies in the U.S. generally package butter in one-pound blocks divided into 4, 1/4-pound sticks, with tablespoon markings on the wrapping. But the other half of the story is that in the East, those sticks are a different shape than the Western sticks. (Western sticks are a little shorter and wider in diameter.)
If you think that it's just due to different dairy companies packaging in the East than in the West, think again. Land O Lakes, as an example, packages butter differently for Western and Eastern distribution. Why? It's got to be more expensive, more time consuming, less efficient. So, why do it? Is there some tradition that dictates the shape of butter sticks?
There's a surprisingly fascinating history as to why East Coast butter is different than West Coast butter. Butter used to be sold in one-pound blocks, wrapped in parchment paper, and packaged in a cardboard box, until 1906, when a big buyer of butter from a restaurant in New Orleans asked if the butter company could sell butter in packs of four quarter-pound sticks rather than one big lump. They obliged, and the sticks were a hit. At the time, the town of Elgin, Illinois was known as the Butter Capital of the World, home to the famous Elgin Butter Company since 1871. It was with their Elgin Butter Cutter that the East Coast butter size was determined, according to a 1948 paper on the packaging of butter, and that's how the name Elgin stick was derived.
It wasn't until the 1960’s that the West Coast really got into the butter making game, as reporter Tommy Andres explained on APM's Marketplace. According to John Bruhn, former director of the Dairy Research and Information Center at the University of California, Davis, "...the size of the cube you see is a result of newer equipment purchased at the time to package the butter." And that difference has stuck, so much so that even Minnesota-based Land O' Lakes butter company makes butter in both sizes and ships it out regionally.
For the most part, the difference in butter size doesn't make a difference when you're cooking. After all, if you're whipping or melting or churning the butter, it doesn't matter how it was packaged. Where this whole different sizes of butter thing gets complicated is when you're trying to find kitchen accessories for your butter—like a simple butter dish. If you move out to California from Connecticut, your Grandmother’s generic butter dish probably won't fit the localized standard stick of butter. So before you start blaming the butter, or Grandma, try getting a new butter dish, maybe even one that'll fit both sizes, such as the ButterCup® No-mess Butter Dish.
Both stick shapes contain the same amount of butter, although most butter dishes are designed for Elgin-style (Eastern) butter sticks. ButterCup® No-Mess Butter Dish will accept both Eastern and Western shape sticks.
Eastern-pack Shape (East of the Rocky Mountains)
4.75” x 1.25” x 1.25”
The dominant shape East of the Rocky Mountains is the Elgin, or Eastern-pack shape. This shape was originally developed by the Elgin Butter Tub Company, founded in 1882 in Elgin, Illinois and Rock Falls, Illinois. The sticks are 4.75" long and 1.25" wide, and were originally sold in flat, rectangular boxes packed side-by-side, but now mostly sold stacked 2x2 in rectangular boxes. Among the early butter printers to use this shape was the Elgin Butter Cutter.
Western-pack Shape (West of the Rocky Mountains)
3.125” x 1.5” x 1.5”
West of the Rocky Mountains, butter printers standardized on a different shape that is now referred to as the Western-pack shape. These butter sticks are usually sold with four sticks packed side-by-side in a flat, rectangular box.
