This Brand Could Be Behind Walmart's Great Value Butter

When it comes to stores with vast private-label empires (à la Trader Joe's and Aldi), it can be fun to play the "whodunnit" game of guessing the major manufacturer behind certain products. While this information is sometimes readily available — such as with Peter Pan, which once made Great Value brand peanut butter (although seemingly not any longer) — oftentimes it is shrouded in secrecy. Walmart, for instance, sells tons of generic products that it allegedly sources from big names in grocery store food retail. Getting those big names can be tricky, but, according to some social media "proof," we may have discovered the brand that's producing Great Value butter.

TikTok user rachaelishere filmed a clip showing a box of Land O'Lakes unsalted butter that was filled with four sticks covered with Great Value-branded wrappers, evidently the result of a factory mix-up. This wasn't an isolated case, either; over on Facebook, a confused home baker posted a near-identical picture, with the caption, "Imagine my surprise when I opened the Land O lakes butter box and found the Walmart brand butter inside!" 

Obviously, this isn't an official admission from Walmart, but Land O'Lakes still just shot to the top of the list of possible Great Value butter manufacturers! This could potentially be a big win for consumers, since, as of this writing, a one-pound box of Land O'Lakes unsalted butter at a Florida Walmart location was selling for $4.46. The same-sized box of Great Value unsalted butter, on the other hand, was $3.06.

Let's keep it real — at the price point you're looking at for Great Value butter, or even the more-expensive (but still budget-conscious) Land O'Lakes, you aren't expecting the butter service at NYC's Quality Bistro restaurant. This is everyday workhorse butter, good for greasing pans, mixing into the cookies you bake for your kids, or buttering your morning toast. Does the label really matter? We would argue that the answer is a resounding "no." (Make sure you read up on how to reuse your butter wrappers, on that topic!)

If you can save over a buck by buying Great Value butter when it may or may not just be Land O'Lakes butter, it seems to be a no-brainer to pick up the Walmart package, provided that Land O'Lakes is the level of butter you're looking for. If you like Kerrygold or another pricier competitor, you'll likely wish to disregard this advice completely! 

While we can't prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that Land O'Lakes makes Walmart's Great Value butter, a few very telling packaging snafus seem to point in that direction. We generally like store brands across the board, because they are often a less-expensive but otherwise indistinguishable dupe of their brand-name counterparts. When it comes to entry-level butter, Great Value may just be the way to go.