In the late 1800s, the dairy industry was quite upset about margarine. They wanted to either stamp it out entirely or make it very difficult to sell. It is said that their rage over the imposter product led to an add thing indeed: Pink margarine! The story begins in 1896, when pressure from the National Dairy Association caused the passage of the Oleomargarine Act. This law levied a tax on margarine products. The tax was easier to avoid if your margarine looked like butter. So, margarine makers dyed their product yellow to avoid the taxes. As a result of this, it is claimed that margarine was then required to be dyed pink, so that nobody could mistake it for butter. It is true. Was margarine once dyed pink so it could be sold in the United States?Yes, and no!
In truth, margarine was never required to be dyed pink on a national level in the United States. When margarine makers dyed their product yellow, the dairy industry pressured for laws prohibiting them from dyeing their product at all.
Individual states began passing anti-color laws for margarine. By 1898, 26 states had passed such laws. The courts subsequently upheld these laws, and the Supreme Court followed suit, saying that the natural color of margarine was light-yellowish, while the color of butter is deep yellow.
This was not strictly true, as margarine could be light yellow to white, similar to the natural color variation of butter, which can be off-white to deep yellow. What was not mentioned was the fact that butter had been colored for years to make it a uniform yellow. You can read all about it here, in my (almost) comprehensive margarine history.
State Pink Margarine Laws
However, some states, including West Virginia, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Vermont, went even further. They required margarine to be dyed pink!
The Dairy Industry figured that pink was about the last color that consumers would expect in a butter-like product. Usually, added colors were used to make food more attractive. Pink was determined to be an unappealing color for margarine.
While the Supreme Court upheld the general anti-color laws of the states, they did not agree with requiring margarine to be dyed with an “arbitrary” color. New Hampshire’s pink margarine law was deemed unconstitutional in 1898. The decision then set the stage for the repeal of other such laws. Not only was pink unfair, as it was far removed from the natural color of margarine, but these were laws that required adulteration of a food to render it unsalable. No matter how the different sides interpreted the law, they obviously understood the importance of color in food.
I am not aware of pink margarine laws being enacted in other states besides those listed above. In all, the various margarine dye laws persisted until at least 1955, even though the Oleomargarine Tax law was repealed in 1950. Two states, Minnesota and Wisconsin, both major dairy centers, were stubborn enough to hold onto their margarine anti-color laws until the late 1960s.
The Great Margarine-Hype
After these laws were repealed, margarine was free to be sold as a yellow, spreadable, butter-like product, without extra taxes. This caused the great margarine hype of the 1970s, as margarine makers were free to promote the “benefits” of their product over butter, as false as these supposed benefits were.
Even Eleanor Roosevelt proclaimed her fondness for margarine in a 1959 commercial for Good Luck Margarine, saying, “That’s what I spread on my toast.” Many consumers switched and became loyal to margarine over butter for decades, and many recipes called for margarine instead of butter into the 1980s and beyond.
When margarine was first introduced, Americans ate perhaps a pound of margarine a year, as opposed to up to 19 pounds of butter! By the late 1950s and beyond, they were eating as much margarine as butter, and some much more. By 1976, the average individual margarine consumption in America was 12 pounds per year.
Why Wasn’t Margarine Prohibited Altogether?
It seems logical to ask why the dairy industry wasn’t successful in prohibiting the sale of margarine, as they had so much power to influence government regulations. The reason is simple: You can’t prohibit it if you can’t detect it. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, both butter and margarine were almost always sold in bulk, not in individual commercial containers. It was then portioned out by grocers and placed into other containers for sale to the public. It was next to impossible to track the sale of margarine in a way so as to effectively prohibit it’s distribution.
The margarine tax laws did not fare much better, as collecting these taxes, which utilized tax stamps distributed to producers, wholesalers, and retailers, took time and resources. Much of the work fell on the states, which didn’t have the means to collect these taxes effectively. You can read more about this in The Strange History of Margarine: From Napoleon’s Prize to Viral Internet Myths. 1Hisano, Ai. Visualizing Taste: How Business Changed the Look of What You Eat. United States, Harvard University Press, 2019.,[noteOffit, Paul A.. Pandora’s Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong. United States, National Geographic, 2017.[/note]
