People always ask me "How did you become the guy who provides the Best Butter On Earth to the top chefs in America?"
Here's the true story:
People always ask me "How did you become the guy who provides the Best Butter On Earth to the top chefs in America?" Here's the true story:
In 1999, my knee injuries were so severe that I could barely walk. My doctor suggested that I try raw nutrition, and I began an intensive 3-year Raw Primal Diet, part of which included large quantities of raw butter and cream. The only problem was that there was no raw butter in California. I called my doctor and asked him "What do I do about raw butter? There is none in the supermarkets!" He said, "Do the best you can."
I got on the phone and started dialing dairy farms. After being told I was "crazy" by 158 small family farmers across America, I finally found a woman and her husband in Kansas who agreed to make unpasturized butter for me with the cream from their 78 Certified Organic Guernsey cows. I then FedEx-ed the butter out to California, gorged myself on it, and sold the rest to other people who were also on the same Raw Primal Diet. The people loved the butter -- and I soon had to get back on the phone and find more farmers who really cared about producing quality products manufactured according to the exact requirements of the raw community.
This went on as a pretty low-key operation for about six months, until one day I got a phone-call from one of America's Super Chefs, who had heard I was selling "some amazing raw butter." I sent him a box of butter and some cream -- he immediately became a steady customer, and the Five Star Butter Co. was born.
That summer I bought a plane ticket to JFK Airport, and took the butter and cream on a tasting tour of New York City's top gourmet kitchens. "Superb!" "Amazing!" "Outrageous!" "Extraordinaire!" "Bravo!" These were the comments of the best chefs in The Big Apple. Pierre Schaedelin, then the Executive Chef of Le Cirque, said "This is the taste of real butter."
In 2004, we were thrilled to begin our association with the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation, and to support their programs to increase the understanding and appreciation of high-quality ingredients among young chefs and food professionals by providing our butter for use at their Celebrity Chef Dinners and other events.
Today, if you are spending $300 on dinner for 2 in Las Vegas or Chicago, you are probably enjoying Five Star Butter with your artisinal breads, in your superb sauces, or as the basis of your creamy deserts. To this day, our commitment is to bring the outstanding quality of real foods directly from small family farms to the best tables in America.
As the nature of our client requests has become more "Gourmet" oriented and away from raw, now all of our butter products are PASTEURIZED. However, we are SOOOO excited and pleased to be providing our clients with 100% Certified Organic, fully sustainable, fully traceable, Grass-fed Northern California 85% butterfat golden deliciousness for all of our Portion Control Butter Pieces.