FAQ Article

- General -

Who is your butter specifically designed for? –

Our butter is designed specifically for anybody who loves the great taste of real, authentic butter, although we do have two particular forms of health-conscious clientele in mind. To begin with, we cater for those of you who have a sweet tooth and who can’t get enough of sweet tasting spreads for pastries, breads, muffins, and anything else that could benefit from a natural, sweet spread. Secondly, we cater for those of you with more of a savory palette, who prefer delicious and all-natural cooking butters instead. Our cooking butters offer a savory, rich, and zesty taste that simply cannot be matched anywhere else.

Is your butter healthier than most regular butters? –

Absolutely! However, keep in mind that it's not so much of what IS in our butters, as much as what ISN'T in our butters. We refuse to add artificial flavors, processed chemicals, hydrogenated oils, or other unnatural preservatives into any of our products, as you would likely see in theirs.

We don't conform to the unwritten standard of sacrificing your personal health for massive quantities, long shelf life, and a lower price, found in most American big-box supermarkets today. We use only the finest ingredients, including 100% pure butter cream from grass-fed dairy, as well as virgin, naturally refined coconut oil, and other organic, non GMO (where possible,) fruits and spices. Our butters are natural, contain nothing fake or artificial, and they taste truly amazing as a result.

How can I use my butters? – 

The possibilities are endless! These butters will help turn even the most novice of cooks into seemingly experienced chefs within a single use. When used correctly, these butters can be used as your cooking oil AND your seasoning, all in a single jar... These butter spreads are our "chef in a jar" answer to the typical family cook's biggest problem... Time. Life doesn't stop simply because you're having a hectic day at work, picking up kids from school, running errands, and still need time to prepare a delicious family dinner... Let us help you! Here are some of our favorite pairings:

• All of our sweet spreads are perfect on dinner rolls, toast, bagels, muffins, pastries, or other baked goods! 
• Our Honey & Cinnamon or Cinnamon Apple butters are great in oatmeal and on baked sweet potatoes!
• Our Sweet Tea butter makes a fantastic buttercream frosting!
• Our Brandy Soaked Bordeaux Cherry butter makes a fantastic sweet glaze for salmon and other seafood dishes! 
• Our savory cooking butters (Roasted Garlic and Sriracha butter spreads) are fantastic as a marinade for roasted or grilled vegetables, work great on baked potatoes, and oddly enough, even grilled cheese sandwiches!
  
• All flavors can be used when baking or with crackers. 
• Grilled steaks, chicken, venison, and nearly any other meat you can possibly imagine. You've heard it time and time again... you don't need that steak sauce to dress your freshly seared strip steak! You won't find a better accompaniment for a grilled steak than our Sriracha, Shallot, and Scallion Butter Spread. Period.
• On savory dishes – Why not rub a whole raw chicken with a liberal serving of our delicious Sriracha, Shallot, & Scallion Butter Spread before roasting in an oven? Our Roasted Garlic butter also works very well on raw fish before baking in foil in the oven. Before serving, you could also add a liberal knob of our garlic butter, or Sriracha butter, to your favorite grilled vegetables or roasted potatoes.

Is your coconut oil based butter spread better than others? –

Compared with hydrogenated oil based spreads, which have been heavily linked with cardiovascular disease, obesity, and other serious health conditions, our butter spreads are light years ahead of most others in terms of health qualities. Our butter spreads are enriched with holistic, natural ingredients and contain Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCTs) which boost the metabolism, prevent cardiovascular disease, protect the heart, and even lower cholesterol levels! Better yet, they contain nothing artificial!

- Caretaking -

Can I simply leave/store my butter on the kitchen counter top? – 

That depends on which flavor you have. Please reference each flavor's individual product page to see more specific caretaking advice. With most of our flavors, if you plan on consuming your butter within the first few weeks, it's perfectly fine to leave it on your kitchen counter top. Because of the coconut oil base, our butters spread best when served at room temperature. You can leave some flavors out longer than others, though, and you'll want to avoid letting it sit near a window with direct sunlight. The fruity sweet butters can be left out on your kitchen counter for a week or two. Any longer, and they will need to be stored in the refrigerator or freezer. The Roasted Garlic and Sriracha butter spreads will last usually last 1-3 months on your kitchen counter top, so long as they don't get unusually warm or sit in direct sunlight!

What is the shelf life of my butter? – 

You can freeze your butters for 18 to 24 months (for best quality) and even a little longer safely. We strongly encourage keeping them in the freezer, if you choose not to keep them on the kitchen countertop at room temp, as they're going to be hard as a rock either way, due to the coconut oil contents. In the fridge, your butters will stay fresh for about 2 months. On the countertop, they will keep for 3 to 4 weeks. 

There's an exception to these rules...

The Sriracha Butter will keep on your kitchen counter for many months! This is because of the hot peppers, which also contain acidic vitamin C, often used as a preservative. Sriracha also contains vinegar, used to preserve hot sauces and ketchup!

How is my butter best served? –

Ideally, if it is being used as a spread, you'll want it to be at room temperature. Before you plan on using your butter, it is advisable that you leave the jar out of the refrigerator/freezer for approximately 30-60 minutes, on the kitchen countertop and allow it to come up to room temperature, as that will make it much easier to spread. If you're just spooning it to be used as a cooking butter, there's no need to leave it out. Providing you plan on consuming your butter within 1 – 14 days of purchase, you can actually store the butter on your kitchen countertop (away from a window or direct sunlight,) and out of the fridge, providing the jar is sealed closed after each use, of course. Coconut oil remains at a soft semi-solid state at 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and your spread will be best served at or around that temperature.

When should I refrigerate/freeze my butter? –

If you don’t plan on consuming your butter within the first 1 to 2 weeks, or if the temperature inside your kitchen is unusually warm, it is advisable that you store your butter either in the refrigerator or your freezer to help preserve and keep it fresh. We suggest the freezer, because it will keep longer, and when coconut oil products like this get cold, they're quite hard regardless. If it's being stored, and is going to be hard as a rock anyhow, you might as well keep it good for up to two years in the freezer! As mentioned previously, simply remove from the fridge/freezer around 30-60 minutes before you plan on using it, and give it enough time to soften nicely, which will make spreading much easier. Just bear in mind that as our butter spreads contain coconut oil, when served at refrigeration temperatures, (34-41 degrees Fahrenheit,) they will be much harder to spread.

Is there anywhere I should avoid keeping my butter? –

If you plan on consuming your butter within 1 to 2 weeks, providing it is sealed properly, it should be perfectly fine kept out of a fridge, on a counter or in a kitchen cupboard. If the weather is very warm however, you may wish to keep it in a refrigerator to stop it liquefying. If kept in direct sunlight, such as on a windowsill, it may also liquefy, so again, it is best to keep it stored in a cool, dark place. Our roasted garlic butter may also melt slightly quicker than other butters, as we roast our garlic in olive oil, before blending it with coconut oil. The slightly higher oil content will cause it to go soft faster than our other butters!

What should I do if my butter melts? –

If you have left your butter in the sun for too long and it has melted, don’t worry, it will still be perfectly safe and the problem can easily be rectified. Simply give the contents a good shake, place the freezer-safe jar into your freezer for around 20-30 minutes, and hey-presto, it should be back to its original state! If not, leave it in for slightly longer. Just be wary that, as our spreads are air whipped, occasionally they may lose a slight amount of volume, so the jar, once cool, may look slightly less full than it did earlier. Don’t worry however, the taste will still be just as delicious, and it will still be perfectly safe for consumption.

- Shipping, Packaging, & Handling -

How much does shipping cost? –

We use USPS real time calculated shipping rates, and are continually working to obtain the best shipping rates possible. Because of this, you should see a savings compared to typical fixed rate shipping costs. Additionally, any orders over $60 in value are free to ship! There is an additional $2.75 automatically built into the cost of each shipment to cover packaging materials.

When your package arrives, you might notice that your butters have been shipped in a somewhat unique fashion. Our butter spreads are cold shipped with ice packs and require more thermal protection than most typical mail packages. We do not make money on shipping and packaging costs.

Throughout the continental US, USPS Priority Mail rates are typically around $7 - $18, depending on how far you are from Chattanooga, TN.

When will you ship my butter? –

We ship 3 days each week, excluding holidays… Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The reason for this is that while USPS Priority Mail is typically 2 business days for delivery, there are exceptions to this rule and we simply do NOT want our butters sitting in a hot delivery truck or shipping warehouse over a weekend instead of being delivered to the customer. We will always strive to get our butters shipped to you in the quickest amount of time possible. However, please be aware that sometimes deliveries may take slightly longer due to conditions out of our control, depending upon current USPS mail volume and your distance from Chattanooga, TN. Sadly, as of this time we cannot speed up the process while keeping our shipping costs fair.

Will my butter arrive frozen and will it be safe if not? What if it’s melted? –

If you are on the eastern part of the US, this will likely not be much of an issue for you, unless it’s just an insanely hot week. If you are in one of the western states, this might occur, especially during the hotter parts of the year.

Rest assured, even if your butter/coconut oil spread is entirely melted upon arrival, it will be perfectly safe for consumption, so long as it has only been in a melted state within the last day or two. It simply needs a little extra work on your part! Please keep in mind that coconut oil has an unusually low melting temperature of 76 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes our product more susceptible to melting during the hotter parts of the year, with ambient temperatures reaching well over 100 degrees in many hot delivery trucks and warehouses. The important question here is “how long has my butter been in a melted state?” If it’s only been a day or two, it’s perfectly fine. The coconut oil itself, along with small amounts of salt, citric acid, (in the case of the strawberry butter,) and the hot sauce, (in the case of the Sriracha butter,) all act as natural preservatives that help to keep oxygen out and prolong the life of the butter spread. Remember, these butter spreads can be used for cooking too! You simply need to shake the jar before opening, and set it in your freezer for 20-30 minutes. (We only use freezer/dishwasher/boiling safe jars.) Beyond that, you would simply care for it the same way as described above… keeping it either in your refrigerator or on your kitchen countertop.

As our butters are cold shipped with ice packs and thermal barriers, they will remain frozen for up to 48 hours on average during transit, varying slightly upon the outside ambient temperatures. The idea behind our ice packs and thermal barriers is to keep the butter as cold as possible for at least two days, which should be the majority of the transit time.

For more information on this topic, view this article on our Butter Blog!

Do you ship outside of the US? – 

Sadly as of this time we are unable to ship our butters to locations outside of the US. As we offer expedited delivery, along with the necessary ice packs and thermal barriers, shipping to non-US locations would simply be far too costly and non-economical. As we continue to grow and expand however, we are exploring the possibility of being able to offer overseas orders, so keep your eyes peeled in the future.

- Local Inquiries -

Will I see you guys at the local Chattanooga Market (or other various farmer's markets within Tennessee) this coming weekend?

We do attend the Chattanooga Market from time to time, yes! We attend more often during the cooler months, as that allows our product to remain in decent condition a little easier. As for when we plan to attend, it's best to check the schedule on our Facebook Fan Page or simply ask the guys there. We tend to update our scheduling status there fairly often!

Are your butter spreads available in Chattanooga, TN? Where can I find your product locally?

Yep. See our Restaurants & Stores page.