Commercial Wooden Butter Cutter

Before it became common to sell 1lb packages of butter, butter was sold to retailers in large blocks. The store owner would then use a length of wire with 2 wooden handles to cut off the amount of butter that was required by the customer and the customer would be charged accordingly. As Butter Factories started competing, they came up with the idea of customised parchment packaging that would promote the Butter Factory and region of origin. This required the factories to determine a standard size and create specialised machinery that would cut and pack large amounts of butter! Consumers quickly adapted to these changes and buying decisions became increasingly influenced by who made the butter and the region which supplied the milk.

The earliest design of a Butter Cutter was a wooden base with thick, rectangular grid incisions that had a wooden lid with a matching grid of steel or iron wire threaded through the outer frame. The block of butter would be placed on the base and as the lid was closed it would slice the butter block into the required pound quantities. Whilst this design was effective it could only handle relatively small blocks of butter.

Whilst this Butter Cutter was not known to be used locally it is highly likely that a similar model was used at this Butter Factory when it opened in 1918.