Spread thin

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Oct 19, 1998

The high cost of butter is cutting into Sara Weihaupt-Christianson's profits at Mississippi Brittle, 1232 Caledonia St.

The unusually high price also concerns Bill Espe, co-owner of The Sweet Shop at 1113 Caledonia St., which soon will use butter to make peanut brittle and cashew brittle for the holiday season. Espe already has seen the cost of his ice cream mix go up 20 percent in the last four months.

And higher cheese prices have prompted pizza places, such as Menucci's Pizzeria at 1904 Campbell Road, to pass along part of the increase to its customers.

Butter and cheese prices have risen because of increased demand and tight milk supplies, said Tom Thieding, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau.

In California, "milk production has been running below year-ago levels all summer, mainly because of the bad weather they've had out there," said Robert Cropp, University of Wisconsin-Madison agricultural professor.

"Milk production (nationwide) has been running just a little ahead of the previous year, and it's barely keeping up with demand," Thieding said. "It's the law of supply and demand working in the favor of the dairy farmer right now. Consumers have to understand that dairy producers were getting $10 and $11 (per hundred pounds) for their milk and not making it, and they finally are getting some good returns."

Despite the higher prices, Thieding said, "People have turned back to butter. That's been one of the factors in the higher prices."

Weihaupt-Christianson isn't thinking about switching to margarine at Mississippi Brittle, although she is paying $3.06 a pound for butter wholesale compared to $1.48 a year earlier. "I can't do that,' she said of switching. "It would totally affect the flavor" of her candy. She uses thousands of pounds of butter each year.

Weihaupt-Christianson said she hasn't raised prices at her store, although nut prices also have increased.

"I feel the brittle is priced reasonably," she said. "And I'd prefer to sell it at a reasonable price and wait for butter prices to come down." She said she raised her mail-order prices slightly because of higher shipping costs.

Weihaupt-Christianson said her brittle profit margin is very small right now, and she looks forward to her traditionally higher sales volume in the last quarter of the year.

"I've just absorbed it," Espe of the Sweet Shop said of higher butter prices. "I don't use an awful lot in the candy-making process. It goes into the fudge and English toffee.

"I'll be using butter when I get to the peanut brittle and cashew brittle" about Nov. 1, Espe said. "I may charge more if the price of butter stays high."

Candy sales dramatically increase with the holiday season, while ice cream sales decline in the fall, Espe said. The cost of the mix he uses to make ice cream has increased 20 percent in the past four months, he said. But Espe also has absorbed that increase, without raising his prices.

"Twenty percent is a lot, but we're going into a slower part of the season," he said. And he thinks dairy product prices will come down.

Menucci's Pizzeria uses butter to make chocolate chip cookies, but is affected more by the higher cost of cheese for its pizzas.

"We made some adjustments in (pizza) prices two months ago," John Driscoll said. He and his wife, Marilyn, own the restaurant and passed along part of their higher cheese costs by raising pizza prices about 25 cents.

The restaurant uses about 500 pounds of cheese a week. The Driscolls are paying $2.06 per pound for mozzarella and Cheddar cheese. "It was $1.48 or $1.49 in January," John Driscoll said.