Butter and Margarine

Since that time, consumption and production of butter in the United States have fallen, primarily owing to rising consumption of margarine. Margarine was developed in the nineteenth century, but consumption paled compared with that of butter, partly as the result of home butter production by farmers but also because of taxes and regulations on margarine. Margarine consumption rose quickly during World War II because of quotas on butter and truly took off following the war. Margarine production surpassed that of butter in 1958 and nearly doubled butter production in 1969. Total butter production peaked in 1940 at over 2.2 billion pounds a year but dropped to less than half this amount by 1975.