Peter MacDonald
Finance Minister Nicola Willis recently fronted what was presented as a serious meeting with Fonterra CEO Miles Hurrell to address skyrocketing domestic butter prices, particularly the much-discussed $11 Anchor block sold in New Zealand’s supermarket duopoly. But far from being a genuine grilling of corporate power, the encounter resembled a performative scolding, like a schoolgirl fumbling through excuses for why her homework wasn’t done.
Willis blamed international demand, calling New Zealand butter a “fashionable” luxury item overseas. She cited surging popularity in Europe and North America as a reason for the domestic price spike. But the logic doesn’t hold up. If Fonterra is enjoying record demand and premium prices abroad, why aren’t New Zealanders seeing the benefits of that windfall at home? If anything, that should reduce the price domestically, not inflate it. It’s a case of the producer enriching itself off the same public that built it.
Adding to the farce, Willis pointed to Costco as a retailer offering cheaper butter. But that’s irrelevant to the majority of New Zealanders, especially those in regional towns – where Costco simply doesn’t exist. For most Kiwis the only options are the duopoly giants: Foodstuffs (New World, Pak’nSave) and Woolworths NZ (Countdown). Suggesting Costco is a viable solution only reveals how detached this Government has become from rural and working-class realities.
Willis also tried to shift blame onto the supermarkets, claiming their margins could be reduced. Yet if, as claimed, supermarkets only apply a five per cent markup on butter, that means just 55 cents of an $11 block is their profit. The remaining $10.45 comes from Fonterra’s pricing. Blaming the retailers is like blaming the shop assistant for the landlord’s rent hikes. Let’s not forget that both supermarket giants, like Fonterra, are profit-driven entities. Expecting them to voluntarily reduce margins is like asking a wolf to go vegan.
Then there’s the issue of loyalty. Nicola Willis worked for Fonterra for six years before entering parliament. This revolving-door relationship raises questions about whose interests she truly serves: the public or her former employer. Her actions suggest the latter. She did not hold Fonterra to account: she ran interference for them, offering up a chain of excuses designed to defuse public anger without addressing the underlying issue of price gouging.
To understand the depth of this betrayal, we must revisit history. The so-called ‘butter mountain’ of the 1970s is often cited as proof that butter was once an unwanted surplus commodity. But the reality is far more complex. When Britain joined the European Economic Community in 1973, New Zealand was cut off from its largest guaranteed export market. British households still trusted and preferred New Zealand butter, but EEC rules barred them from buying it. The result was not a lack of demand, but a politically enforced glut. New Zealand farmers and exporters didn’t stop producing high-quality butter: it just piled up in cold storage while cheaper and subsidised European alternatives flooded British supermarkets.
Even long before that, it was New Zealand taxpayers and domestic consumers who built the dairy industry. From the late 19th century, they bought the product locally, funded refrigerated shipping infrastructure and later paid taxes that subsidised overseas export logistics. The first frozen meat and butter exports in 1882 sailed from Dunedin carrying the dreams of New Zealand’s primary producers on the backs of local support and public money.
Today, Fonterra is biting the very hand that fed it. It’s demanding international prices from the very people who enabled its global success. This is not the free market: it’s corporate capture. And it’s enabled by politicians who are supposed to protect the public interest but instead serve as shields for powerful industry players.
In the end, Nicola Willis didn’t ask the hard questions. She performed a scripted act designed to soothe public frustration without shaking the status quo. The media may call it a “constructive meeting”, but the public knows a staged scene when they see one. When butter, once a staple of the Kiwi diet, becomes a luxury item, something is deeply wrong. And when our leaders make excuses instead of taking action, it’s not just butter that’s gone sour: it’s the whole system.
A Grassroots Revolt, Kiwis Churn Back
As the supermarkets try to justify eye-watering prices and politicians scramble to excuse their corporate ties, ordinary Kiwi families are quietly pushing back. Across Dunedin, homemade butter is reappearing: not in slick packaging or high-end delis, but in independent butcher shops and local community fridges.
Word is spreading fast: you can make your own butter from just cream and salt. Families are rediscovering the art of churning and small neighbourhood co-ops are emerging. Some are sharing know-how on social media or at farmers’ markets, while others are already selling or bartering homemade blocks under the table.
It won’t be long before some clever entrepreneur turns this movement into a full-fledged local industry or an underground food cooperative. Expect to see small, bespoke, dairy herds popping up again, owned not by billion-dollar companies, but by working-class families taking back control of their food.
In a country built on dairy, the people are quietly remembering they don’t need Fonterra to feed themselves. The tide is beginning to turn. When for-profit corporations weaponise price gouging against their own people, Kiwis don’t riot: they return to their roots. True to a tradition steeped in quiet resilience, they simply turn the other cheek and churn their own butter. Across the south, families are homesteading again: producing rich, homemade butter with dignity and defiance. It’s not loud, but it’s deeply symbolic and a humble slap in the face to a corporation that has exploited Kiwi loyalty for far too long.
