Move over, tannenbaum. Make room for Keller's 'butterbaum'

Dairy Farmers of America's Keller's Creamery also molds butter in the shapes of lambs and turkeys.

After a chorus or two of "O tannenbaum," holiday dinners might be singing the praises of a new butter-shaped Christmas tree this season.

Keller’s Creamery, owned by Dairy Farmers of America, is putting its butter sculptures into new, easy-to-open packaging. The new packaging includes a molded, plastic casing with easy-to-open tabs that allow convenient access to the butter.

The Christmas tree is one of three seasonal sculptures rendered in 4 ounces of butter. The others are a lamb for the Easter season and a turkey for Thanksgiving.

The Christmas tree is the first to use the new packaging, which allows for a more detailed sculpture design, said Ashley Campbell, Keller’s Creamery senior associate brand manager.

The process of pouring the butter directly into the plastic allows for greater detail to key features of the sculptures, such as the tree’s branches and the turkey’s feathers.

“Customers will definitely see added detail to the sculptures. The new packaging offers much better definition,” Campbell said.

In prior years, the butter was molded and then packaged into a container that supplied structural support only to the base of the butter and not the entire sculpture.

“The plastic now encasing the entire sculpture not only provides the butter additional support, but also decreased manufacturing time” said Paul Johnson, manager of purchasing for DFA.

Keller’s has been making the sculptures since 1958. The first product was the lamb. It was made in a wooden hand-pressed mold.

Demand for all three seasonal sculptures continues to grow, the company said. Orders for the Christmas trees alone doubled over the last two years.