When British chef Thomas Straker filmed himself blending wild garlic into butter during lockdown, he didn’t know he was about to accidentally reinvent a whole category. “He did a quenelle of butter and said, ‘Welcome to all things butter,’” recalls co‑founder Toby Hopkinson. Those five words supercharged his TikTok channel – Straker’s follow‑up, the 30 Butters in 30 Days challenge, took him from 100,000 followers to a million in a month – and spurred the launch of All Things Butter, a wildly successful butter brand.
He didn’t do it alone. He joined forces with Toby Hopkinson, a growth marketer with stints at other viral brands such as Harry’s, Away and CBD drink brand Trip, and the pair set out to modernise a butter aisle that looked frozen in time – dominated by own‑label blocks and heritage brands, with near‑identical gold and silver foils and little to excite younger shoppers.
“Millennials and Gen Z cook with oils – seed oils, olive oil – whereas my mum’s generation cooked with butter. Tom was showing them its versatility and richness of flavour,” says Hopkinson. Capitalising on this success, they launched in October 2023, serendipitous timing according to Hopkinson: “The stars aligned for us,” he says. “There was this backlash against UPFs, lockdown had people cooking again, and butter was having a resurgence. People were re‑educating themselves about healthy fats.”
Social first, shelf second
True to its origin story, All Things Butter maintained the philosophy of content first, retail second front and centre. “We are, by a country mile, the largest follower dairy brand on social media – and still are,” says Hopkinson. Indeed, to date ATB’s content has clocked 1bn views.
But while brand buzz can get you noticed, Hopkinson and Straker knew better than to assume that longevity would come from prioritising style over substance. “Pretty packaging might get you six months. After that, the product has to cook and taste better. Consumers are savvy – they expect an elevated product under the wrapper,” says Hopkinson.
Achieving that while remaining profitable has been a steep learning curve for the friends. “Our advantage is that none of us came from dairy – and our disadvantage is… none of us came from dairy,” he says with a laugh. The upshot: a willingness to question category norms and a crash course in cream markets.
While the stars had aligned for a butter revamp among youthful shoppers, for supply chain stability, they were less lucky. “We could not have launched at a worse time,” Hopkinson admits. “Within six months, cream had doubled. When your raw material is 50% of cost, that annihilates your margin.”
He laughs now, but it was brutal: “We’d been in supermarkets for four weeks – the last thing you want to do is ask for a 50% price increase. So we took the hit. It was one of the toughest periods we’ve been through.”
“Dairy pricing is incredibly complex,” Hopkinson says. “Weather, energy, feed, geopolitics – Ukraine war, blue tongue outbreaks – it all hits cream. AI can’t predict it.” Today, the team hedges, forward‑buys and even freezes butter to smooth the spikes.
They are confident about the price point too, which is far below pricey French imports. “We don’t make crazy margins,” Hopkinson says. “But we believe in quality. Twice‑churned, creamy, structured – not pumped with water. It takes out more moisture, so it’s creamier and has better texture. If you unwrap ours and an own‑label, even without a trained palate, you’ll taste the difference.”
New SKUs
While All Things Butter has five flavoured options on the market (garlic, chocolate, cinnamon bun, smoky paprika and brandy butter for Christmas) it’s the salted and unsalted that sell best. But they are soon to be joined by another category altogether: cottage cheese, under the All Things Dairy umbrella. “We trademarked ‘All Things’ because we wanted to stay in dairy. Butter felt like the biggest opportunity – but we knew we’d go further,” says Hopkinson.
But why cottage cheese? “Three macro trends: gut health, protein, clean label,” he explains. “Cottage cheese ticks all three. It’s high protein, has cultures, and we keep it clean – no potassium sorbate. That means 30‑day shelf life instead of 90, which is a pain for supply chain, but it’s non‑negotiable.”
As with the butter sector, the firm has an unflavoured core product as well as interesting combinations. “We’re launching natural, mango and mixed berry. Sweet is booming in the US – Good Culture can’t make enough of it,” he says. “But in time we’ll do savoury too: garlic and herb, sweet chilli. There’s loads of scope.”
The road ahead
So what’s next for the start-up? Hopkinson isn’t thinking exit yet: “Every time we look at the opportunity – category, international – there’s so much to go at. Selling now would feel like failure.”
Instead, the team are exploring more opportunities such as cream cheese and yoghurt, but always with a new take on an old category. Like the Dyson of dairy? Hopkinson grins: “Ask me in a couple of years. I hope I can say yes. We’re trying to be.”
