Margarine's introduction—and its swift rise in popularity—came at a time when many customers were frustrated with butter's inconsistencies. Typically made in small batches, butter could vary widely in quality depending on the equipment, livestock, and skills of the producer. As historian Gerry Strey noted in a 2001 article for The Wisconsin Magazine of History, “So bad was the overall quality of Wisconsin butter that in Chicago markets, it was known as ‘Western grease,’ and was sold as a lubricant, not for human consumption.” Though margarine offered a more consistent alternative and was becoming widely available, many American consumers were wary of its unappealing pale grayish appearance.
To make margarine more appealing, some producers began adding yellow food dye to mimic the color of butter. With its new sunny yellow hue, the spread was more readily accepted as a consistent and affordable butter substitute. In his dissertation "Bogus Butter: An Analysis of the 1886 Congressional Debates on Oleomargarine Legislation," Chris Burns, a butter historian at the University of Vermont, notes that margarine made such a good alternative that over 60 million pounds of margarine, occasionally called “butterine," were sold fraudulently as butter in 1885.
Big Butter Steps In
The backlash from Big Butter came quickly. In 1886, Congress passed the Oleomargarine Act, which imposed federal taxes and licensing fees on margarine manufacturers. Some states—including Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio—banned margarine completely.
Other states, rather than banning it outright, enacted "pink laws" that required producers to dye margarine an unappealing pink or face a $100 fine or up to 60 days in jail. Some state legislators even proposed coloring the margarine red, brown, or black. These pink laws were immediately effective, stalling margarine sales until the US Supreme Court struck them down in 1898. "Pink is not the color of oleomargarine in its natural state," wrote the Court, noting that no sane customer would purchase such an "unsalable" product. The Court ruled that forcing the coloration of food was unconstitutional, effectively ending the era of pink margarine.
Margarine returned to store shelves as if nothing had happened, and as sales rose again, its rivalry with butter resumed. The conflict reached a peak in 1906, when the federal government passed the Pure Food and Drugs Act, which prohibited the sale of misbranded or adulterated food. Under this law, margarine that mimicked butter now faced legal scrutiny.