I can’t believe it’s vintage butter & margarine advertising from the 1920s-1950s! If you know the reference then this post is for you. If you don’t and you love vintage ads, then this post is also for you. So sit back, and enjoy!

Note: The history of the world butter and margarine and the battle between the two is a long and very interesting read, but too long for my blog (cliff notes: butter hated margarine for being fake & looking like butter). So I encourage you to read some of the links I have provided thru out this post to get caught up.

Disclosure: Some of the links on my blog from Etsy , eBay are Affiliate Links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. 

Vintage Butter & Margarine Advertising 1920s-1950s

Butter leaflet front cover to encourage the consumption of butter for good health in the 1920s.

Source: National Archives

‘Sainsbury’s Rich Dairy Butter -Back to Pre-War Prices!’

Butter ad from the 1920s. Includes the price of ‘1’4 per pound. Also includes the text: ‘A Sample Purchase will convince you of the exception Quality and Value’.

Source: Sainsbury Archive

1920s ad for ‘Morris Supreme Margarine’. “On baked potato-that’s a good test for the flavor of a spread”.

Further reading: The History Of Margarine Goes All The Way Back To Napoleon

Source: Periodpaper.com

May 1930 vintage ad for ‘Brookfield Butter’ & ‘Brookfield Eggs’ from ‘Swift’s Premium Quality featuring buttery biscuits. Yum!

Source: eBay

FACT: During the Depression, people had less money to spend on butter, so production and usage of margarine increased. By the mid 1940’s, butter shortages during WWII caused the sale of margarine to surpass that of butter (source).

1931 ‘Meadow Gold’ Butter ad – “ Thousands of homes learned today the deliciousness of “june Flavor” butter”

Source: Atticpaper.com

1930s advertisement for ‘Nucoa’ Margarine, the “Thrift Spread”. “Save you up to 14 cents a pound”.

Source: Etsy-AmericanCenturyShop

“5,000,000 dairy farmers are doing their part to win the war….There’s plenty of butter for America’s lunch box”.

American Dairy Association butter ad from 1942.

Source: Etsy-VintageAdCorps

1947 ‘Allsweet Vegetable Oleomargarine’ ad. “There’s nothing artificial about the flavor of this margarine-delicate natural flavor!’

Source: Etsy- SwellVintageAds

‘Cudahy’s Delrich’ brand of margarine used a “color berry” to color its white vegetable-based margarine yellow. This 1948 advertisement demonstrates how to color the margarine inside the package (source).

Note: Why color the margarine? Let’s just say that this is part of that “long history” I mentioned above that had to do with the battle of butter being yellow (it’s original color) and margarine not having a yellow color without help to it. Take a read here on ‘Food Dye Origins: When Margarine Was Pink‘.

Source: Wikipedia

1949 ‘Parkay’ margarine print ad featuring a vintage recipe for ‘Orange Fluff Frosting’ perfect for the topping of that perfect cake.

Source: Etsy-AmericanCenturyShop

“Flavor! Nutrition! Econom-e-e! Blue Bonnet Margarine gives “All 3”.

1950’s ‘Fleischmann’s Blue Bonnet Oleo Margarine’, “Winter Snowman” newspaper ad.

Source: eBay

1950s butter advertisement (1952) from the American Dairy Association featuring recipes for ‘Almond-Asparagus’ & ‘Butter-Browned Chicken’. “…then you add Butter for flavor!”

Source: Alamy

1950s Danish margarine advertisement – ‘Kloster Margarine’.

Source: Etsy – OutofCopenhagen

1957 British ad for ‘New Zealand Butter’. “Be certain-order it by name’.

Source: Alamy

1950s “nutritious” margarine ad from the ‘National Association of Margarine Manufacturers’.

Further Reading: Margarine Bootlegging in Canada (FACT: between the 1880s and 1950s, margarine was outlawed in Canada and margarine-hungry Canadians bootlegged the stuff).

Source: Etsy-CalypsoCollecting

1953 American Dairy Association featuring “2 Easy Butter Sauces to make meatless meals sing!”. Vintage recipes for ‘Deviled Eggs Dinner-In-One-Dish’ & ‘Salmon with Easy Hollandaise”.

Source: Alamy

Generic butter commercial from about 1956, from the American Dairy Association (video link).

I hope you enjoyed these fun butter & margarine ads, please share in the comments section what your favourites were.

Question time: Are you a butter or margarine fan?

Further Reading:

• Vintage advertisements 1920s-1960s (archived blog posts)
• Vintage Food posts

Thanks for dropping by!

Liz