Costco Auckland has put limits on the amount of butter customers can buy, but shoppers are still queuing at the store for butter. Photo: RNZ/Bella Craig
It's 9:30 on a Friday morning at Costco and already the line is spilling out the door. Most of those in the queue are here for another delivery of Costco's butter, which has risen to fame due to its price, at $9.99 a kilo.
It's become so popular that on Thursday Costco put a limit on it - a maximum of 30 each of the salted and unsalted Kirkland's butter, which comes pre-packed into slabs of 10 individual kilos.
Waiting at the door is Aucklander Lisa Blake, who owns a dessert business. She said the cheaper butter helps keep her costs down.
"I've saved $600.00 this morning," Blake said. "So it cost me $600, but I've saved $600 'cause it's twice the price at the supermarket - and it's New Zealand butter made in Hokitika."
She had to make an hour-long drive from Papakura to buy it, she said, but it was still worth it as the butter at her local supermarket costed up to $26 per kilo.
"I don't really want to put my prices up."
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Another customer, Mathew Watson, travelled up from Taranaki just to visit Costco.
He is relocating to the South Island soon and will freeze his butter stash to take with him.
"I'm bulk buying - moving to the South Island soon, so I'll take it with me."
Photo: RNZ/Bella Craig
Butter prices across the motu have risen significantly in the past year.
Stats NZ data showed butter prices were up 65.3 percent in the last 12 months to April 2025.
Another shopper told RNZ she buys from Costco once a week for herself and elderly members of her community in Waiuku.
She had previously even waited overnight in the car park so she could be first in line.
"I took a whole pile down to my family down the line, last week. They're elderly - they can't afford butter - and our kaumātua shouldn't be going without butter," she said. "They've retired, they shouldn't be struggling to get butter."
The queue at Costco Auckland on Friday morning. Photo: RNZ/Bella Craig
Courtney Manica had driven from Torbay on the North Shore to see how many blocks of butter she could buy before it sold out.
"For the 400 grams it's like $8.99 [elsewhere], and I can't justify spending that. But $10 for a kg is good."
She was buying for friends and family who were working and could not make it on Friday.
"A friend who runs a bakery, she is saving up to $800 a month on butter because she's coming to Costco," Manica said.
A man who helped run a cafe in west Auckland said he was at Costco to save on butter and eggs. He had bought the maximum amount of butter allowed, 30 blocks of each.
The cafe had to put its prices up recently to match grocery costs, he said.
"This is a massive saving. Butter is in everything - same as eggs - so a very precious commodity."
Gavin Senior, another local from Auckland said he was now shopping at Costco for his butter because the prices at his local supermarket had skyrocketed.
Over the last couple of years his family has had to be careful with spending. His adult children had also moved home as it was too expensive for them to live elsewhere.
"We've just gone back to being more budget, eating more budget. Buying from this place helps 'cause they sell in bulk, so I'm breaking stuff down and separating it in the freezer."
At the nearby Westgate Pak'nSave, 500g of butter blocks ranged from $8.99 to $10.99.
Woolworths in Westgate had similar prices, from $8.50 to $10.89 for 500g.
Checkpoint approached Costco asking why they had introduced a limit to their blocks of butter. They declined to comment. Butter supplier Westland Milk Products also did not respond to Checkpoint's repeated requests for comment.
Price of butter for French pastries eye-watering - Christchurch baker
Co-owner of Christchurch's Bellbird Bakery David O'Brien told Checkpoint they were considering raising their prices.
The bakery did not have access to the Costco butter from Auckland, and were paying "quite a bit" for the ingredient - 'not quite double' that, O'Brien said.
They typically used 260 to 300kg of butter a week, mostly for their French pastries.
"We're definitely ... under fire - it's on everyone's lips at the moment, the butter prices. So it's something we constantly look at."
O'Brien said he was in discussions with their supplier to try to get better prices on butter because of their volumes. But "it does come to a point where we do have to review prices and we do have to put our prices up accordingly. We can't just keep absorbing these price hikes."
In the last few years Bellbird had developed a vegan pastry recipe, which tasted almost the same as pastry with butter, but the ingredients for that were even more expensive again, he said.
And prices for coffee and chocolate had also escalated steeply in recent years, he said: "Those three are pretty much the biggest ones for us, and we use all three of them - so not great for us."
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