Westgold’s creamy butters take the gold

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Westgold’s salted and unsalted butters have won gold medals at the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards with Westgold’s new garlic and parsley infused butter earning bronze.

The success in this year’s awards follows a winning streak for Westgold’s much-loved salted butter. Last year the butter won its fourth gold medal at the New Zealand Champions of Cheese awards which did not include a section for butter this year. As a result, Westgold entered the Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards for the first time.

“We always knew that our butter is special and winning two gold medals and a bronze reinforces this,” Hamish Yates, Westland Milk Products’ general manager sales and Marketing, says.

“The awards demonstrate the excellence of our product, right from our farmer suppliers providing creamy delicious milk to our master butter makers who carefully craft Westgold.”

Judges were full of praise for the two Gold Medal winning butters which Westgold entered in the Dairy category of the awards. They described Westgold Salted Butter as good quality and “creamy and tasty with a nice spreadable texture and gloss.”

They said Westgold Unsalted Butter had a “clean, fresh flavour”. It was not too dense and spread nicely, while its aroma was “true and creamy”.

“The 2023 entries of this, the seventh year of our awards, was one of the most satisfying arrays to judge to date,” said Lauraine Jacobs who led the team of 25 experienced food judges that assessed the 290 locally harvested, grown, and made food and drink award entries over two days.

Hamish Yates says he is proud of what Westgold is achieving as a producer of very high-quality butter.

“Our Westgold story is a great story to tell. It centres around milk sourced from cows grazed on grass on a small number of farms below the majestic Southern Alps. The fresh cream is traditionally churned and crafted by our master butter makers, using the traditional Fritz Churn method. Some of them have been doing that craft for many years and the results of their skills are very tangible.”

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